WORKMEN AND RATES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2363, 8 June 1899, Page 62

WORKMEN AND RATES.

A most wholesome check would be given to Ccunty Council and School Board extrava■gance (says the London Globe) if it could only be brought home to the working classes that they have very strong interest in keeping do\vn rates. Most of them still cling to the notion that, as they do not pay these imposts direct to the collectors, they escape payment altogether. Such being their view, it is natural enough that they should regai-d the inflation of rates with approval ; they will participate in the resulting benefits without, as they imagine, contributing a single farthing towards the cost. Nor is this delusion confined to London. A citizen of Newcastle sketches the sort of hard facts which he would like to see kept before the working class intellect in that heavily-rated city. After showing in detail that the total amount exacted from the ratepayers now amounts to more than 7s in the pound, he proceeds to prove that the occupiers of weekly lodgings luffer in various ways from this onerous taxation. They have, of course, to pay much higher rents, their landlords taking very good care to recover in that way every addition to the rates, and, in most cases, something more. Similarly, employers of Jabour are cftmpelled to proportion wages to establishment charges, and the higher the rates the lower the remuneration they can afford to give. Tradesmen are in precisely the same position ; they must, for self protection, charge higher prices to their customerg. Thus, then, the workman is mulcted all round the compass, and he probably contributes much more heavily than if he paid his rates -directly, as in the case of householders.