BUDGET WILL SEEK TO PASS BURDEN ON TO

The renewed expansion of the past 18 months, stimulated by the give away to big tax payers, business and the banks in the last Budget, now threatens to upset the precarious balance of British capitalism.

Business interests are peremptorily calling for correctives. Spending must be cut. Costs must be kept down. Sterling and the balance of payments must be protected.

They speak as though this were a national concern; they mean that they need policies to defend the profits and investments of their class.

Whose spending must be cut? Some businessmen look to government economies. At the present stage not much can be done there. Today, State expenditures cannot be comSS SSeS sls Ss sists senses NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF LABOUR CAMPAIGN: AREA ASSEMBLY BOOK THIS BIRMINGHAM: April 24 DATE NOW!

can continue to extract unpaid labour from the workers and realise it on the market under the most favourable conditions.

At present, given the international context and the trends in the economy, that means a curb on the artificially-created debtridden expansion of the past year. When the press talks of a check to spending, it means spending by wage earners primarily.

To balance out the system Budget measures will deliberately run the risk of increasing unemployment and speeding up the onset of recession, which is on the way for other reasons.

In fact, there is no other way.

Budget strategy thus seems crystal clear. It is simply a tech- Nical problem to devise the detailed measures fitted to the purpose and to dress them up in a way in which that purpose will not be too obvious. There are divergent interests within the capitalist camp to be smoothed over as well as possible, but the dominant note will accord with the tune of the big business and financial oligarchy.

Typographical Hall, Bath Street, Birmingham. __...