COMMONS DEBATES RATE RELIEF SCHEME

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6631, 9 June 1928, Page 6 (Supplement)

COMMONS DEBATES RATE RELIEF SCHEME

SECOND BEADING OP JBILL. Aust. Press Assn.—United Service. Keccivcd Thursday, 7.30 p.m, : . !.i LONDON,.June 6. In the House of Commons Sir Arthur Neville Chamberlain, Minister of Health, moving the second r eading of the Eating Valuation Apportionment Bill explained that it dealt' with the machinery of the rate relief scheme. Mr. P. Snowden (Lab.) moved an amendment objecting to the unfair discrimination between enterprise .and societies preliminary to, subsidising certain industries at the expense of householders, shopkeepers and distributors. Taking industry as a whole, ho said the proposed rating relief averaged one and a half per cent. - of the value of the total, output. This would ,d« little to lessen unemployment or stimulate industry. • ; ! The Government's rate relief scheme was a pure . and simple system of subsidies given irrespective of needs. Brewers, whose profits had increased by 150 per cent, since 1920, would be l relieved to the same extent .as shipbuilding. Sir Kingsley Wood replying,to the debate said'' that representatives ol necessitous areas would have no cause of complaint when the Government’s proposals for reform of local government were considered in the autumn.