BURDEN OF TAXATION

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17436, 7 April 1931, Page 7

BURDEN OF TAXATION

TENDENCY TO INCREASE BRITAIN CANNOT AFFORD IT LONDON, Feb. 18. Mr. William Graham, president of the Board of Trade, addressing a council meeting of the Drapers' Chamber of Trade in .London yesterday on the need for co-operation between British producers and distributors, declared that there was no definite sign at the moment of any upward movement in world commodity prices. Replying to Mr. Graham, Sir Sidney .Skinner, president of the chamber, said that once they could get a stabilised market business would immediately take an upward trend. "The difficulty in business to-day," lie said, "is that we are faced with a taxation which seems to have no limits, a taxation which is not going to be reduced, but which seems to have a tendency to increase. It is no good for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to tell our manufacturers that they must put their house in order, and see that their plant is brought up to date, if the very means by which they can do this is taken from them. The whole business of the reconstruction of British trade is reduced taxation, both local and imperial. In our opinion as business men we shall have to cry a halt in taxation. The country cannot afford it, and the business community cannot afford it.- Unless some steps are taken to bring about a reduction, unemployment is bound to increase and our difficulties will grow."