BRITISH RATES BURDEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19927, 21 April 1928, Page 12

BRITISH RATES BURDEN.

SCHEME FOR BELIEF. MOTORING CIRCLES EXCITED. PETROL DUTY ANTICIPATED. 'Australian and N.Z. Press Association. (Received April 20, G. 25 p.m.) LONDON, April 20, Excitement prevails in motoring circles 3n England owing to a report to the effect that the Chancellor ol tho Exchequer, Mr. Churchill, intends to impose a duty of 6d a gallon on petrol and to leave the present tax of £1 per horsepower unchapged. Motorists had hoped that the horse-power tax would be reduced lQs and did not suspect the possibility of a spirit tax. This, it is stated, the Chancellor requires to finance his ambitious scheme for relieving the rates. In the courso of a speech at Birmingham on February 3 Mr. Churchill said: I stated in July at Honiton, and in Scotland in September, that the Jccal rates constituted a burden that was harassing upon productive industi-y and agriculture. I argued that pound for pound they constituted a worse burden than the Imperial taxes. They vary capriciously between one part of the country and another. They vary with the results of local elections. They are constantly changing, and usually rising- Unlike the incojji® tax, they are levied whether there are any profits or not. They penalise Invidiously the producer in town or country who has to use extensive premises or bulky topis to carry on his business. They fall most heavily upon the basic industries which employ tho largest' number of workmen, and they fall with aggravated effect upon the struggling business whose plant, already rated lg the full, is running perhaps at only half or a three-quarter capacity. I pointed out that whereas our system of national taxation was revised and refined every year by Parliament, the local rates are ptili levied on principles dating from the sixteenth century. I said then as I say now, that I was not in a position at the moment to make any positive proposal, and that nothing that I said must be taken as a pledge or , a promise. There is all the difference between wishing and having, between thought and action, between a dream and an event. We must see how the finances of 1928 and 1929 work out and how fast we progress in our recovery from the havoc of the strike period. Nevertheless, I will go so far as to say that if i ' had the money an advance in this direc--5 tion would round off with singular completeness the financial policy oi the present Parliament.