§ What the House is more interested in than a hypothetical "Normal Year" is next year. I am not going to attempt at this stage to estimate the expenditure or receipts for the next financial year.
§ Mr. LAMBERTYou have told us that there will be no additional taxation.
Mr. CHAMBERLAINNone of my predecessors have ever been asked to do such a thing, and I do not think the House will require it of me. Next year is at once too close for it to be an attractive or tempting task to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and it is too far off for me to frame a calculation as accurate as the House of Commons would expect, if I made any calculation at all, or if I mentioned any figures. Therefore, all that I propose to say is that, according to the best calculation that my advisers and I could make, additional taxation—and the House will note that additional taxation is not the same as replacing an existing tax by a different tax, as might be done with the Excess Profits Duty, or a readjustment of burdens such as may be necessary when the income Tax Commission have reported—additional taxation will not be necessary unless the House desires one of two things, the first of which is, unless the House embarks on new expenditure not already provided for. For instance, a Committee is sitting on Old Age Pensions. I do not know what their recommendations will be, but I have made provision for the payment only of existing Old Age Pensions, and if the House decides that they are insufficient I have not made provision for a larger sum. The House decides, and the House must decide, when they have the Report before them, whether they will impose additional taxation in order to increase the amount available for Old Age Pensions. Additional taxation is not necessary unless the House imposes additional charges on the Exchequer, or 751 unless the House denies a more rapid reduction of the National Debt. Provision is made in our Estimates for a Half per Cent. Sinking Fund on the Debt, a sum which, if it is continued, will be sufficient to redeem the Debt in a little over fifty years. The House may desire to make more rapid provision for its reduction, but unless the House imposes new charges on the Exchequer, or desires a more rapid reduction of the Debt, then I can see no necessity for new taxation either in the next year or in a normal year. Apart from that, I anticipate that in next year after providing for the abnormal aftermath of war expenditure in so far as it is not met by revenue out of the assets to be realised, there will be at the end of the year a substantial balance to go in reduction of debt.