§ Since I last opened my Budget, we have had several Debates on post-war problems, including economic and financial questions. While we are concerned first and foremost with winning the war, we must also be preparing ourselves for the problems and projects which must be dealt with and accomplished when the war is over. In the last few months I have spoken at some length on such matters, and I do not intend to say much more on the subject now; but I should like to point out that it is as true of financial and economic policy as of any other, that what we do in war-time may be a very direct preparation for what we shall have to do afterwards. The sounder we keep our financial and economic front now, the better fitted shall we be to face our difficulties and to implement our many programmes for advancement then.
§ Let me take two important examples, one of a particular nature, one other more general. The first is the question of interest rates. During this war we have stabilised the general complex of interest rates at a level so low as would have been thought impossible by anyone who merely based himself on the experience of the last war. We have developed a new technique in these matters, and we have revolutionised public opinion as to what are fair rates for Government war borrowing. Thus, not merely shall we pass from war to peace with rates on a low level, but the country is, I am sure, also expecting that reconstruction and development after the war shall have the benefit of cheap money. It is the Government's intention to maintain its present policy of cheap money after the war for that purpose as well as in the interests of the Exchequer itself.
§ My second example is the general question of inflation. I have warned the House on a previous occasion that inflation will be one of the greatest dangers after the war. The purchasing power of current personal income will have behind it a potential reserve in the large volume of war savings and the Income Tax post-war credits, but for some time there will be only limited quantities of goods to be purchased. Whatever controls the Government may have to maintain over the 952 supply and distribution of these goods, there will still be as great a need as ever, side by side with the taxation we impose, for the restriction of personal consumption by voluntary savings. Only in this way shall we be able to find the physical resources and the funds which will be needed to carry out our many programmes of post-war capital reconstruction and development.