"Poor Man's Budget"

Voters who believed the platform promises of Eamon de Valera to reduce taxation could barely believe their eyes when they read the Budget Bill presented to the Dail in Dublin last week by embarrassed Finance Minister Sean MacEntee.

Mr. MacEntee proposed to up the basic Free State income tax rate from three shillings and sixpence in the pound to five shillings (25%). Next he asked the Dail's leave to take 25% of the Irish Hospital's profits in their famed sweep- stakes. Thirdly he proposed a whole string of tariff uppings. Finally he asked leave to spend an extra $367,000 to give jobs to Ireland's unemployed under the Housing Act.

"This is a poor man's budget!" declared the Finance Minister. Charging the previous Cosgrave Government with "faulty bookkeeping," he declared that the de Valera Government had found themselves faced with a "paper deficit" of -L-630,000, which knocked President de Valera's plans for tax reduction to smithereens. Interrupted former Finance Minister Ernest Blythe: "Instead of a 'paper deficit' of -L-630,000 we left you a surplus of -L-160,000!"

Good or bad, the MacEntee budget pleased the Laborites whose support keeps President de Valera in power. The President stuck last week to the job of keeping his other great campaign promise-- his promise to abolish the Oath of Fealty to the King (TIME, Feb. 29, et seq.}. In Dublin the bill abolishing the Oath was before the Irish Senate having passed the Dail. Suddenly in London the beans were spilled by that pudgy-fingered, perennial bungler the Rt. Hon. James Henry ("Jim") Thomas, Minister of Dominions.

In a statement which London editors unanimously called "ill timed," Mr. Thomas threatened that if the oath is abolished Great Britain will retaliate by refusing to renew the tariff preferences she now grants to the Free State. Obviously the timing of this threat was such as to enrage the Irish Senate just before it voted. It increased the chances that the bill would pass. Quietly jubilant in Dublin, teacherish President de Valera dryly said:

"When it is proved that the British Parliament and the Canadian Parliament cannot abolish their oaths if they choose, then and then only I will begin to think there may be some basis for Mr. Thomas' remarks." Three weeks ago Britain's House of Commons voted down 294-10-4 a British Laborite proposal to abolish its oath to George V (TIME, May 9).

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