THE SYSTEM OF RATING
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sia,—The Labour Party has asked that the Shipbuilding Industry should be subsidized ; that idea has been condemned as too risky, unfair, etc. The municipal rates in this country are a direct charge on production. Recently a West of England steel manufacturer was sued for non-payment of rates amounting to about 02,000 ; this amounted to a charge of 6s. per ton of the finished product. Would not the best form of subsidy to shipbuilding and all industries and trades be a change in the basis of rating ?
After all, why should rates•—i.e., contributions to the Guardians of the Poor, education, public parks, libraries, baths, infectious diseases hospitals, etc.—be based on the size and position of property ? Generally speaking, the bigger the property occupied the more beneficial the business is to the town because of the labour it employs, whereas speculators in food, etc., moneylenders, financiers and others may be making ten times more income and paying only a tenth of the amount to the rates, while providing comparatively little employment. It is only too possible under the present system for one firm to contribute 20 per cent. of its net profits to the rates while another's contribution may be only per cent, Can such injustice be allowed to continue ?
If only because _it is unjust it ought not to be tolerated, but, when we are losing markets, factories, shops, shipbuilding yards, &c., are closed or closing, is it not an obviotis way of stopping the rot setting in to make rates payable on income ? Why, the West of England manufacturer nientioned above could quote 5s. less per ton ; surely, that would get him business ! Better by far factories and shops be kept open, employing labour and paying no rates than have to close down and put workpeople on the dole.
The country groans under the burden of taxation, but the co-operative societies remain untaxed. Why ? It is their avowed intention to -force out the private trader entirely. Suppose they succeed : who is going to pay the national
venues then ? Obviously, the co-ops. will have to pay then. Why not now ? Why should the private trader subsidize them, to their own ultimate undoing, by paying their share of the national expenditure. The revenue is spent for all, why not contributed to by all ? Is there any logical reason why they should not pay—except the fear of losing votes ? We want, nay, need, the burden of taxation eased and here is a very large source of revenue untapped and the rest of the community exploited to make up for it. Which party will dare to put this injustice right Y-1 am, Sir, &a, P. R. B.
[We agree that the time has passed when local taxation was a small matter in a mainly agricultural country and no great injustice was done by taking a small toll reckoned upon the most obvious forms of property, and we have often pointed out the harm done in rural areas. Probably in indus- trial areas there would be less injustice if rates became a local income-tax, but industry would. still bear the burdens which just now are crushing and urgently need lightening. In regard to co-operative trading societies, with all our admira- tion for voluntary co-operation, we regret with our corre- spondent that they do not share in the first privilege of citizenship, namely, making their due contribution to the public revenue.—En. Spectator.]
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