RATING RELIEF.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19332, 9 June 1928, Page 15

RATING RELIEF.

BILL PASSES READING.

MR LLOYD GEORGE'S CRITICISM.

(UHTMED PRKSS ASSOCIATION— BI SLBCTBIC TELEGRAPH—COriBIQHT.) LONDON, June 7. In the House of Commons, Mr Winston Churchill told a questioner that under the rate relief scheme, agricultural lands and buildings would benefit to the extent of five millions yearly. Mr Lloyd George, referring to the Hating Valuation Apportionment Bill, said the Government's scheme was thoroughy bad, because while there was need for urgent relief, it tarried. The Minister of Health ought to have consulted local authorities. If Mr Churchill were to take over the whole of the outdoor relief, the rating burden would be reduced throughout the country. This would be better than discrimination between various classes of ratepayers. Sir Robert Home, supporting the Bill, pointed out that the basic industries were suffering greater rate burdens than their competitors in any other country. Mr Wheatley said the Government was proposing to relieve industry with thirty millions, which it itself derived from industry. The scheme was obviously fraudulent. . Mr Churchill insisted on the impossibility of discriminating between prosperous and unprosperous industries. To spread the relief over shops and houses would result in the relief to productive industry being utterly inappreciable. When embarking on a course of relief and liberation it was necessarv to advance with.courage. The Bill was read a second time by 308 votes to 140.—Australian Press Association, United Service.