Word: sir
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Tall, bland Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir John Simon drew gasps from startled M. P.s by disclosing that as much as 150,000 tons of wheat have been bought by the Government in a single day, plus correspondingly gigantic purchases of sugar and whale oil. (The British lower classes can subsist indefinitely on bread and margarine-in which whale oil is a key ingredient.) What Sir John was really doing, as he "opened" the Budget last week, was unlocking the State secret that His Majesty's Government have craftily completed the first step necessary to prepare the Empire against...
With M. P.s sitting silent as if stunned, Sir John explained: "The Government took the very unusual course of acting without first applying for statutory authority, in confidence that the House of Commons would understand our reasons and would, in due course, enable us to obtain legislation conferring the necessary powers" to pay for all this food. It has been bought by ostensibly private British syndicates whose members have confidence in Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, a businessman whose reputation for commercial integrity is second to none...
...Absolute secrecy was essential," Sir John said, "to prevent prices from being raised by knowledge [among food sellers] of the Government coming into the market. Had it been known, of course, the effect on prices would have been disadvantageous to consumers generallv as well as to the Government." That U. S. wheatmen have not been asking much as they would have asked had n Sir John and Mr. Chamberlain been secretive, and by the same token U. S. citizens have not had to pay as much for wheat and bread as otherwise would have been the case...
Soak Everybody! Because the rich have been so drastically soaked for years in the United Kingdom (where many taxes are clearly confiscatory), Sir John Simon in effect made the keynote of his new Budget "Soak everybody...
Everybody in the Kingdom drinks tea, has been paying for the cheapest grade about eightpence per pound plus sixpence tax. Sir John added another tuppence (4?), drew from all quarters of the House pained cries of "Oh!" and "Shame...