HOSPITAL COSTS

Evening Star, Issue 24047, 20 November 1941, Page 5

HOSPITAL COSTS

PROPER CHARGE UPON RATES LABOURERS' RESOLUTION HANDS OFF SECURITY FUND (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Nov. 19. The proposal to remove hospital costs from the rates and make them a charge on the Social Security Fund was criticised adversely to-day at the General Labourers’ Conference, which is at present sitting in Wellington. The following motion was carried unanimously : “ This conference directs the attention of all workers to the movement sponsored by the Municipal Association, the Counties' Association, the Farmers’ Union, the Sheep Owners’ Federation, the Wellington City Council, and the Press, the object of wheih is to abolish hospital levies on property and to compel the landless majority of the people to bear the cost by—(a) Further taxation of wages and salaries, or (b) further indirect taxation; and we declare, first, that hospital maintenance is a prpor charge on the community value of land; secondly, that to relieve the richest people in the country of taxation at the expense of people who have no property but who depend on their labour is indefensible, inexcusable, and intolerable, and we pledge ourselves accordingly to oppose it; thirdly, that the wages tax' should be abolished altogether at the earliest opportunity ; fourthly, that a copy of these resolutions be forwarded to the Government.”

Proposing the motion, Mr P. M. Butler, the general secretary, said the agitation in favour of abolishing the hospital rate had been proceeding for years past, but had lately gathered momentum, and as the originators had the sympathetic co-operation of the Press it behoved the workers to arouse themselves. “ As a practical illustration of what the proposal means,” Mr Butler said, “ I would point out that according to the Municipal Year Book there are 70.036 electors'on the Wellington municipal roll, of whom the,ratepayers number 22,623, or considerably loss than a third'. That third includes landlords. The majority, of course, includes those who pay rent, who live on a precarious tenure in lodgings, in flats, .and other undesirable places. These people depend entirely on their labour,- and the proposal means that , the ratepayers, who practically own the city, are to he relieved of the hospital rate at the expense of their tenants, who are already having a hard struggle to pay theif rents.

" The ratepayers,” Mr Butler continued, “ also include the richest estates of the city. The capital value of one estate is about £BOO,OOO, of which the unimproved value in round figures is £400,000, On the basis of last year’s levy, the abolition of the hospital rate woiild mean that this estate would save something like £2,300 a year. In other words, every insurance company, every bank, every -shipping company, every brewery, and every hotel would be relieved of taxation at the expense of the propertyless majority. Of course, there are small ratepayers who mostly own their mortgages, but to relieve the rates by placing hospital taxation on wages and salaries will mean a fractional reduction in rates hut "greater taxation from wages. “ Accordingly,” Air Butler concluded, “ it behoves those who do not have large property holdings to arouse themselves against the insidious machinations to which the recently-elected Wellington City Council is a party. It would he well for these councillors to bear in mind that only one-third of their constituents are ratepayers and then perhaps some of them would hesitate to betray the highest interests of the people who elected them.”