NATIONAL DEFENCE TAX

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22107, 1 June 1937, Page 9

NATIONAL DEFENCE TAX

TROUBLE PREDICTED FOR MR CHAMBERLAIN TWO OPPOSITION MOTIONS TABLED (BEITISn OFFICIAL. WIRBL.EBS.) RUGBY, May 29. When Mr Neville Chamberlain's Government meets the House of Commons on Monday, the business will be the second reading of the Finance Bill, which wiil be moved by the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir John Simon). Two motions for the rejection of the whole bill have been tabled. The conventional Opposition motion is in the following terms: "The House cannot assent to the second reading of the bill, which in a time of peace and rising prices embodies an unbalanced Budget, thereby promoting further increases in prices and depressing the already low standard of life of pensioners, unemployed wage earners, and other persons of small means, and which fails to deal adequately with profiteering in armaments, or to raise an equitable share of their cost from those most able to bear the burden.' The other motion, which has been tabled by eight back-bench Conservatives, reads: "The House cannot agree to the second reading of the bill until arrangements have been made for a further investigation of Part 3—national defence contribution—upon trade recovery and expansion and upon employment, and until the views of those engaged in the trades and businesses affected have been fully ascertained and reported." The tabling of the motion followed a meeting of the Conservative members of the Finance Committee, at which strong criticism of Mr Chamberlain's amended proposals] for the national defence contribution were voiced. The Shipbuilding Employers' Federation and the Shipbuilding Conference have telegraphed to Mr Chamberlain expressing grave concern at the national defence contribution proposals as entirely failing to meet the position in the shipping industry. They contend that, unless the proDosals are further amended, they will be subjected to serious injustice, endangering the existence of individual firms during the next depression and impairing the ability of the industry to Temain fit to meet a national emergency.