President Roosevelt's _finaneiat advisers cannot empower him to do more than promise that the federal budget shall be balanced next year. This year another deficit of what, by pre-war standards, would be considered mammoth proportions, marks the discrepancy between revenue and expenditure, Confidence in the resumption of the: trade recovery, temporarily checked by the natural "and industrial calamities of the last few month; renewed testimony to the strength! of American credit and, perhaps the feeling that the halo of clectioncoring triumph still casts its glamour on Mr. Franklin Roose velt's impressive head, combine to make acceptable a decision which in former times would have been severely criticized. Nor can such complacency be hypercritically re~ huked if note be taken of the President's caustic comment on the way in which some nations are making their rearmament programmes synonymous with a strong bid for bankruptcy. On this comparison the figures lately quoted by. the: National City Bank of New York throw vivid light in setting out (in millions of dollars) the national defence expenditures of the world at 1936 parity: 1031 1994 1935, United States 708 710965 Great Britain 449481847 France 005 583710 Germany. 247 382 2,600 Moly. 272 208 B71 USSR. 281 1,000 2,905, Japan 132 '212 307 World 4067 5,068 10,731
When it is realized that these figures do not take into account the sharp rise in 1936, due to events in Burope and Abyssinia the serious~ ness of the situation will be perceived. President Roosevelt is able to announce that the United States national defence budget is actually below "the traditional figure." It is certain that no other country in the world to-day can claim such restraint. Apart from
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