BRITISH RATING REFORM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20115, 28 November 1928, Page 10

BRITISH RATING REFORM.

The British House of Commons is debating what will certainly be regarded as tho most important issuo it will have to handlo between the present time and tho general election next year. The second reading of the Local Government Reform Bill is expected to provide discussion for several days. Tho measure is a necessary corollary to the rating relief scheme contained in Mr. Churchill's last Budget. Relief was provided out of the general revenue to remove in part the heavy burden industry has had to carry because of the local rates levied on it. It was felt that this could not be done without attending also to the whole question of local government. The Minister of Health, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, is in charge of the bill. It is generally admitted that few men in public life have studied the problem of local government more closely than he, and that few have a better grasp of it. The case for reform was stated in part by him at the annual Conservative Conference last September. He admitted that it was so complicated and technical a question that to deal with it from the platform was not easy; he did, however, discuss some of the main reasons for embarking on the task. A survey of the whole field, he said, showed how unfairly the existing system worked in many instances. There were vast differences in the services given the people in different localities; similarly thero were enormous differences in the resources commanded by the various kinds of administrators. As the law stood tho rich localities, with most to spend, received most from the Exchequer. The necessitous areas, where needs were greatest, got least. Nothing had been done in the way of far-reaching reform of local government in the past 40 years. In the meantime conditions had changed, as well as the ideals of what were reasonable and proper standards of human life. The Local Government Act of 1888, carried by a Conservative Government, was the outstanding feature of local goveyiment in the last generation. He believed the bill he was to introduce this autumn would also be a landmark in the history of the country. It is evident that whatever there may be, good or ill, about the measure to be debated, Mr. Chamberlain handles it in the Commons as an enthusiast and a convinced advocate.