London, Mar. 12, With the issue to-day of the Army Estimates for the financial year 1980-31, it is now known what, sum the Chancellor of the Exchequer will have to provide to meet Supply Services for the year.
The Estimates are as follows:—Army £40,500,000—a decrease of Navy £51,739,000—a decrease of Air Force £.17,850,000—an increase of £.1,650,000.
Civil Votes £.296,085,500—an increase of £.56,800,000, Customs, Excise & Inland Recrease of £560,000.
'The total estimated expenditure is £.417,909,000, showing a total increase of' nearly 55,000,000.
'The exact amount of the debt in Consolidated Fund charges will not' be discussed until the day the: Budget is presented in the House of Commons. In the last Budget the provision made for this expenditure, including the Sinking Fund, amounted to £379,000,000. In the coming financial year there well be saving of 15,000,000 Consolidated Fund charges by. payments, hitherto made to local taxation ' accounts, being transferred to the Civil Estimates. If the other items in Consolidated Fund Services remain at last year's figures and the provision for the Sinking Fund is not reduced, the expenditure under these heads would be £.964,000,000, which would bring the total expenditure in Mfr. Snowden's forthcoming Budget to £782,000,000. Compared with the total of £.742,000,000 in the last Budget, this shows an increase of, $.16,000,000 of this increased ex~ penditure, in addition to the £.15,000,000 transferred to the Civil Estimates, is attributable to relief of local taxation under legislation passed by the late Conservative Government. This can be met out of the Rating Relief Suspense 'Account, which, at present, has a balance' of about—£.20,000,000. £.25,000,000 of increased _expendi-tore would, however, have to be met out of the ordinary sources for such relief. Whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when he makes his Budget statement in the House of Commons on April 14, necessary to impose subject of serious discussion in Parliament.
Mar. 13.
The political correspondent of the "Daily Chronicle" states, in this ntcrning's issue, that the McKenna duties on imported motor-cars and the duties on silk and artificial silk will be. retained in, the new Budget—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.