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The house received the speech with marked apathy. Members rose and left, until fully one-third of the seats were empty. When he finished, not a single Cabinet member was present. The people, when they heard of it, received the speech with more than apathy—disappointment that they had not been asked for more. Their only real objection was that the cigaret tax would be tough on the Tommies, whose meagre service allowance ($2.80 a week, of which married men must remit half to their wives) was not enough for a packet a day as it was. By last week most Britons figured that they might lose everything even if Britain won, that they would surely lose everything if not; and they were prepared to devote much more than was asked to national defense. The News Chronicle called the budget "Timid and tinkering." The Daily Mirror'?, acid "Cassandra" wrote: "It's like its creator—chubby, cheery, ineffective, unimaginative and hopelessly inadequate. It limps far behind public demand." In plainer sight than ever was the plan of liberal Economist John Maynard Keynes to appropriate a part of everybody's salary, "hold it" for him until after the war.