§ My immediate task is finished. In time of war the various Departments associated with the war effort take, and ought to take, all that is required to enable us successfully to prosecute the war. The task of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is, therefore, determined by circumstances largely outside his control. What he must strive to do is, first, to deal adequately with the financial problem presented to him and, secondly, to distribute with all possible justice the weight of the resulting burden. That I have endeavoured to do. The increases in taxation are indeed heavy, but a weak and insufficient Budget would not lighten the burdens of our citizens. On the contrary, it would increase them. With the enhanced yield of previously existing taxes I shall be raising altogether in a full year £1,860,000,000. That is £500,000,000 more in tax revenue than was collected last year and nearly £1,000,000,000 more than in the last pre-war financial year. Moreover, of the net expenditure to be financed from domestic loans and taxation, I shall be raising this year practicaly half by taxation.
§ I would claim that here an endeavour has been made, with fairness of purpose and with forethought, to apportion equitably the load we are all willing to carry. Moreover, wherever possible I have tempered the full rigour of my proposals not only to ease present conditions, as with the extension of the policy of restricting increase in prices to a minimum, but also, with the arrangements for postwar repayments to meet the trials and difficulties after the war. Certainly here the whole world will see still further and tangible evidence of our firm resolve to leave nothing undone to achieve victory, whatever the cost. We make these further sacrifices, not on our own account alone, but because of our steadfast belief and hope that out of the evil and misery 1332 of war we shall emerge strong and able to join with others in helping to secure freedom and happiness for those who today suffer so hardly and cruelly at the hands of the oppressor.