London, July 16.
The present trend of nations to spend the greater part of their resources in preparing for a possible Armageddon was deplored by Sir John Simon, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in winding up the debate on the Finance Bill, which embodies the Government's proposals for the current year as set out in the Chancellor's Budget statement, in the House of Commons yesterday.
"Let there be no mistake," he asserted. "If we do not succeed, and the world does not succeed, in finding some way in which we can prevent the folly of this ever-increasing expenditure on armaments, then indeed the future we are preparing for our children is one at which we may shudder."
The third reading was passed without a division.
On the whole, Sir John Simon said, his advisers took the view that there was reason for discounting and distrusting any gloomy prophecies for the future.
"It is not with any pride or exsultation," he declared, "that I have to present to the House a thousand million pound budget. We can take our pride in the courage and resolution with which our fellow countrymen shoulder the burden, We can get some satisfaction and justification in the knowledge that it is not we who set the pace. We can get some comfort from the knowledge that this country can endure at least as well as the rest of the world to bear the burden.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.