DUKE AND HIS MILLIONS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume II, Issue 288, 9 November 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

DUKE AND HIS MILLIONS.

HOW THE BATES OE LONDON aught be believed.

“ Is it not time that we called upon the people who are plundering the industries of .London to pay some fair share towards the great national services of the country: 1 A Tory paper told us the other day that the Duke of Westminster draws a million a year in ground rents from London alone. That means that he owns £'20,000,000 in land values, and yet he pays not one single pennv piece towards the great services of the borough, ’ said Mr. Outhwa.de 31. p., at a meeting in St. Pancras recently. He had lieen contending that the great services, such as education, poor relief, etc., are financed in an absolutely unjust way, and that localities least able, to bear the burden have the heaviest burden cast upon them.

After mentioning the Tory paper’s statement as to the Duke -of Westminster's wealth in land values, lie proceeded to draw a parallel between the amount paid in taxes by a cottager in Hanley, and stated that if the Duke of Westminster were taxed in the same proportion he would have to contribute £300,000 in taxation on land values. That was where the shifting of the burden would take placo if ground values were taxed. The Duke of .Norfolk was another peer who drew an enormous income from the industries of cities. lie drew from Sheffield £150,000 a year m ground rents, and he also drew another vast tribute from the Strand, to the extent of a quarter oi a million in ground rents. The Duke of Norfolk was therefore able to allow Ins acres in Sussex to lie idle, but the moment the laud was tapped by means of a tax on its value, he would begin to consider that he had better put his rural acres to the very host use. (Hear, hear.) Councillor Harlcw, who presided, mentioned that the Duke of Bedford drew from houses in the neighbourhood £3.697 in ground rents. Vvhy, then, should the Duke of Bedford not pay the present rates on this ground rent? If he paid the rate of ~s. 7d. in th-e pound. St. Pancras would at- ouee get a farthing rate in relief of its present responsibilities.