Orders of the Day — Finance Bill.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 16 May 1934.

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The Amendment complains that the Bill perpetuates the unfair incidence of indirect taxation, upon which there was certainly some improvement, and from which there was some departure, in the days when Lord Snowden was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and made some concessions. They appeared to be too generous in the view of some Members who sit on the opposite side of the House. On the whole, while the proportion of the nation's income year by year has remained almost stationary, there have been deviations in the incidence of the burden upon citizens; there have been changes in the allocation of the money. The burden of £800,000,000—now reduced to just over £700,000,000, because of the change in the method of presenting the financial statement—has to be collected from a variety of sources for our various national services. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his Budget speech, showed manifest satisfaction with the position, but said that we were not free from future difficulties, that we were now passing through a difficult period in world trade, upon which we depend so very largely and from which our income is so very largely derived. The wages of the ironworkers, the textile workers, and others, and those who have investments in foreign countries, depend very much indeed upon the maintenance of our trade with other parts of the world. The Chancellor said that the prospects for the resumption of foreign trade were not too bright, that obstacles had been thrown into trade channels which were not as easily accessible as they were. He said that that process of putting more obstacles in the way was going on.