Biggest Ever

Canadians might be short of U.S. dollars (TIME, Aug. 25), but they had plenty of their own. They were making and spending money so fast that sales-tax revenues at July's end were $24 million ahead of last year. Income-tax payments, despite a 29% cut in rates (effective July 1), were expected to add up, by fiscal year's end, to a whopping $100 million over estimates. Up to mid-August, customs duties, ballooned by the tremendous surge of imports from the U.S., were $44 million greater than in mid-August 1946.

In all its history the Dominion Treasury had never known anything like it. Best guesses were for a $400 million surplus, double the figure forecast by experts only four months ago. The big surplus, plus the fact that 1948 will almost certainly be an election year, made another fat tax cut a sure thing.

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