- WHY SOCIALISTS =WIN
[To the Editor of the SoncrArron.] — have lately witnessed an election under conditions that are a positive negation of the minciple " no taxation without representation." A district in Glamorgan had to return a member for the Glamorgan County Council, and there were two candidates for the seat, a Socialist who was supported by all the labour and trade-union organizations, and an Independent who was backed by the ratepayers and the moderate elements.
Abont 00. pei cent. of the population are coalminers, the vast majority of whom pay no rates, although as householders pr .lodgers they have the vote. And a large proportion of these voters are unemployed and dependent upon the rates. The actual ratepayers are comparatively few in number.
They consist of (1) the _railways, collieries, and other public companies, who contribute the highest rates, but who have no yote ; (2) Tradesmen, farmers, owners of house property, including many miner fathilies, and a minority of tenants who pay rates. Even the trade unionists among the ratepayers voted largely for the Independent, as did workers who were relatives of or in sympathy with the ratepayers.
:• But from the outset, the election was a foregone conclusion. ..The great Mass of non-ratepaying electors care not a ha'penny 'Whether rates are 20, 30, or 40 'shillings in the pound. The question is irrelevant to their politics. They don't have to pay ! The pauper vote is suspicious and hostile to talk of lower rates; lest it may mean less money for doles and parish relief. So these elements provided a thumping majority by which their representative was returned to the County Council.
• IV in local borough and urban district councils it is becoming more and more the same story. The non-ratepayers levy, collect, and spend the ratepayers' money, while the ratepayers
• have no say in the matter. It is literally a case of " taxation without representation." And the non-ratepayers cannot or will not see that high rates may indirectly affect their own fortunes. In these circumstances, reform is urgently needed. ' We cannot put back the clock, and disfranchise the non- -ratepayers, but we could give them a sense of responsibility and afford abetter meed of fair play to the present ratepayers by the following measures : t (1) Proportional representation for local government elections. . - - . •
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i (2) Direct. levy of rates- on all electors, in whatever small amounts, so that they increase or decrease with, the rates. (8) A fair number of votes-to be allotted to ratepaying.public companies in proportion to the rates they pay.
• (4) Able-bodied persons under 35 who have been dependent upon the rates for twelve months preceding any election, to be debarred from voting at that election.—I am, Sir, &c., Y GWYLI wa.
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