ALL PARTIES PUZZLED.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 4829, 6 May 1914, Page 5

ALL PARTIES PUZZLED.

BRITISH BUDGET PROPOSALS. HEAVY CALLS ON THE RICH. Electric Telegraph—Press Association Cocy right. London, Last Night. The Budget speech occupied two anil a half hours, and the magnitude and intricacy of proposals puzzled all parties. Mr Lloyd George said a precondition to a grant to local authorities would be efficient service in respect to the poor law, police, roads and education. The essential part of the scheme was a national sytem of valuation for loea 1 taxation and by separating site from improvement would be more equitable and impartial bqtifcecn tlfe classes and localities. Half a million would be devoted to meals for needy school children, physical training and open air schools. Hundreds of thousands attended the schools daily in a condition of semistarvation and any attempt to teach them was a mockery and torture. A -11111 of £750,000 would be spent in developing a. national nursing service and loeqd centres for diagnosis and research . After consulting the best authorities Mr Llod George was of opinion that though there would be slackness in certain trades others would he busier than ever. Trade in 1914 was likely to be of the average. (Dealing with taxation Mr Lloyd (iborge pointed out that direct taxation is now (50 per cent, and indirect 40 per cent. Death duties bn estates over £60,000 would be increased until the maximum of 20 per cent, had been reached upon estates of £1.000.000, instead of the present fifteen per cent., realising £3,000.000 in a full year. Increases in the income and supertax would make a man with an income of £IOO,OOO annually pay 2s 6d ill the £, compared with the present Is Bd. A statutory declaration of the total income would la; enforced, under stringent penalties in order to prevent investments abroad where income accumulated as capital. The House of Commons agreed to tho ineopie tax resolutions and adjourned. There was some surprise in the lobby that at a period of embittered party controversy the House of Commons should be asked to consider a complete re-casting of local government finance. Some Unionists describe It as a dissolution Budget owing to the heavy calls upon tlie rich. The Liberals generally approve of it.