HIGHER TAXES

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 6 August 1925, Page 5

HIGHER TAXES

PREDICTED'FOR BRITAIN

INCREASED BEEirDUTY ?

HOW THE SUGGESTION AROSE

BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION-COPYRIGHT Received Aug. 6, 10.15 a.m. LONDON, Aug. 5. The Daily News political correspondent says that the oeer tax suggestion emanated from Conservative quarters, where the Government humiliation is deeply resented. There is a keen desire to inflict some punishment on organised labour, but there is no justification for supposing that the Govern, meat will impose a beer tax. Highei taxes are probable in 1926, in view of the steady rise in national expenditure, but other classes of taxpayers will be the selected victims. —Sydney Sun Cable. LONDON, Aug. o. Lobby correspondents hint at the likelihood of the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr Winston Churchill) paying the cost of the coal subsidy by adding a penny a pint to beer, which will bring in £20,000,000. The big breweries are making large profits, and it is known the industry regards increases in direct taxation as impossible. A later statement declared that reports of an increase in the beer duty were without foundation. The parties held meetings, preparatory to Thursday’s debate in the House of Commons on the coal subvention. The Labour members of the House passed a, resolution emphasising their solidarity and determination to uphold the miners. The Liberals decided 'to oppose the subsidy. The Conservative industrialists demanded assurances from the Prime Minister (Mr Stanley Baldwin) that the subvention would he limited to nine months, and not he repeated in the case of anv other industry. It is understood that Mr Baldwin will express agreement with this view.

Interviewed by' the Daily Chronicle, the miners’ secretary (Mr A. J. Cook) states that the miners will endeavour to clear up before the Royal Commission why coal priced at 17s to ]8» per ton at the pithead cost- the consumer £2. Tliev will prove that the wages are utterlv inadequate, and that the industry is over-capitalised' and needs reorganising productivelv, distributiveIv and financially. “We contend that the subvention is due to the industry’s inefficiencv,” added Mr Cook.

IN SERIOUS STATE. DECLINE IN CONSUMPTION. GENEVA, Aug. 4. The International Labour Bureau lias issued striking statistics, showing that the world's coal industry is in a serious condition and approaching bankruptcy. Germany is saddled with ten million tons of unsaleable coal, Belgium with a million and a half tons, Poland with a million tons, Biitain lias five liun- , dred pits closed and a quarter of her miners are unemployed. Thirty-six thousand Ruhr miners have been dismissed and another forty thousand are under notice. Poland has eighty thousand miners out of work. The Bureau says the crisis is due to the steady increase in coal production and the * constant diminution in demand, due to the use of electric and petrol power. Britain suffered most owing to the failure to introduce modern machinery methods in the mines. Britain’s ' present crisis would have occurred two years ago except lor the occupation of the Ruhr and the (onsequent German importation of British coal. Germany has now regained her pre-war coal export trade, while Britain’s has selion.sly declined. The Admiralty during 1924 only bought 273,000 tons, compared with 1,697,000 tons in 1923.