New Star

The Liberals have found a new hero. His name is Douglas Charles Abbott, Minister of Finance. In his maiden budget speech last week, Abbott endeared the party to more than, 2,000,000 income-tax payers with a cut averaging 29%. At the same time he jumped into favorite's place in winter-book betting as a successor to William Lyon Mackenzie King.

The stage was well set for Abbott's first starring role. Hundreds had ridden or tramped through three inches of unseasonable snow to pack the House galleries. The only empty space was in the diplomatic gallery, where Britain's High Commissioner, Sir Alexander Clutterbuck, sat in lonely state, until the guards let the public in there, too. To the front bench, where he sat alongside beaming Mackenzie King, Abbott brought the same brisk, workmanlike manner he uses in his office.

Bearer of Good News. In a clear, confident voice, loud enough to be heard throughout the chamber despite its poor acoustics, the Finance Minister gave resoundingly good news. For the fiscal year ended March 31 there was "a surplus larger than the accumulated total of all the previous surpluses in our history." It was $352 million, and the national debt had been reduced by that amount--to slightly more than $13 billion. For 1947, Abbott expected the value of Canada's national product to increase from $11.1 to $12 billion. There was full employment, and "prosperity never exceeded in living memory."

At each item of good news, Liberals slapped their desks and Mackenzie King beamed more broadly. But Abbott, like Santa Claus pointing to a bag stuffed with presents, kept his audience waiting for long minutes before he loosened the drawstrings and displayed his prize package: a new schedule of income-tax rates under which "the average amount of tax will be reduced by about 29%. . . . The reduction . . . is as much as 54% in the bottom bracket, but is limited to about 6% or 7% in the top brackets." Half of the relief will apply on 1947 incomes, since reductions go into effect on July i.

Abbott grinned as the House roared, and waited patiently for the clamor to subside to let him explain some of his reasoning. The middle-income brackets had been given the most careful consideration because they include so many people on fixed salaries, who have gained least in the economic expansion since 1939. Also, they include young men in science, business and the professions who are most readily lost to the U.S.

Bearer's Scheme. Abbott's tax schedules are cunningly contrived to meet this border competition. But only in the lowest brackets are they below current U.S. rates (see box). Farther up the scale, they still take more from the pocket than does the U.S. Treasury.

There was nothing else so exciting in Abbott's Santa Claus pack. The rest of the budget contained nothing of note but the promise that the excess profits tax would end Dec. 31. All the excise and nuisance taxes were still there. Cigarets--not even figured in the cost of living--were still taxed at 21-c-: a pack, about $75 a year for the average smoker. But the immense popularity of income-tax cuts in every bracket was enough to give the Liberals a new hero.

Bearer's Progress. Seldom has a man risen so far and so fast in Dominion political life. Descendant of New England Tories of Revolutionary War days--he sometimes refers to his "New England conscience"--Doug Abbott had nothing to do with politics until he was 41. His career was law, his sports were bridge, golf, curling and fishing. Born in 1899 (at Lennoxville, Quebec), he served overseas in World War I, returned to finish his law studies. By 1940 he had a pretty wife, three children, a medium-sized income in a medium-sized Montreal law firm, and an idea that he might like to be a judge. As a steppingstone, he decided to contest St. Antoine-Westmount, where no Liberal was supposed to have a chance. To his own surprise, he was elected.

From his first back-bench speech, Abbott was marked as an authority on taxes. In three years he was in the Government, and in five he made the Cabinet. With his love of tax matters, he was a natural for the Finance portfolio last December.

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