I hope to collect this year in income-tax and surtax over £100,000,- 000 more than my predecessor collected in the last year of the Great War. But the whole of the great increase in taxation in the last three years represents not an encroachment on a reserve, but a legitimate use of it," he added.
The country is undoubtedly richer than it was twenty years ago. The standard of life of our people has greatly risen. We still have a substantial reserve of taxable capacity.
The existing burden is by no means so great as in some other countries, and I am quite confident that the taxpayer in this country is willing to bear whatever fiscal burden may be necessary in order to make the country safe and strọng.
On the other hand, even if it had been possible to cover the whole cost of rearmament by current taxation, this would have caused a tremendous dislocation of business in Referring to the increasing scarcity of bills of exchange, it had suggested that it was due to the jarger volume of money which it was desired to invest in bills.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.