FINANCIAL STATEMENT. (Hansard, 25 April 1933)

§ The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain)

I rise this afternoon to open my second Budget and to make a statement which, as I read in the daily papers, is eagerly awaited. That, I fancy, is not an uncommon preliminary with a Budget statement, but before I proceed to confirm or confound the prophets, who have as usual been busy with their forecasts, I am sure that the Committee will desire me to follow the customary practice and to give them some account of the financial transactions of the year which has just closed. On every Budget day the Chancellor of the Exchequer must perforce himself enter the ranks of the prophets, and must look into the seeds of time and see which.grains will grow and which will not; and if, like myself, he has held office for more than a year, he must compare the anticipations which he formed 12 months before with the actual results, and must draw what lessons he can from the discrepancies and from the agreements before he prophesies again. During the post-War years there have been some very wide differences between estimates and achievements, both in sum and in detail. Although to-day I have not to report so wide a gap as has from time to time appeared during that period, nevertheless the differences are sufficiently great to indicate bow difficult it has become in these times to forecast with any accuracy what is going to be the course of events. It would seem to be almost as difficult, when they are over, to arrive at a just computation of what they are, for although it is certain that the year for which I estimated a Budget surplus of £800,000 has closed with a deficit, I have seen that deficit variously estimated at £3,000,000, £6,000,000, £8,000,000, £11,000,000 and £32,000,000. However the deficit is calculated and although, of course, everybody would have much preferred to see a surplus, I think the out-turn of the financial year, achieved as it 32 has been in the teeth of all the shocks and strain to which the financial position of this country has been subjected, may well afford us more solid satisfaction than we derived from the contemplation of some of the surpluses which were earned with so little effort in earlier and more prosperous times.