Amendment of Law.

Part of Orders of the Day — Ways and Means. – in the House of Commons at on 25 April 1928.

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Photo of Mr David Lloyd George Mr David Lloyd George , Caernarvon District of Boroughs

This is really not a question of machinery, but of finance, and we are entitled to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when we are discussing the finance of this problem, whether the whole of the burden of the rates, which is now borne by the landowners in respect of land in Scotland, is to be taken over by the Exchequer, or is to be left where it is? We are really entitled to ask that question. The relief in England will be on a different basis, and will be more considerable than that in Scotland, but there is really no difference. In Scotland, the money goes direct to the landlords. Here, it is hound to go indirectly. The same thing applies to the mines. The right hon. Gentleman, who preceded me, said that the rates amounted to something like 6d. per ton. The royalties are exactly the same figure. When you come to consider the hypothetical rent, surely you must take that into account. The 6d. is paid, whether a colliery loses money or whether it makes money. At any rate, the royalty owner ought to make a contribution towards this distress. You have a process in Scotland, as you have in Ireland, by which the landlord in all tenements of £50 and under has an assessment of what it is fair for him to receive as rent. Why should not there be the same process in regard to royalties? The right hon. Gentleman yesterday, when he talked about the contribution which is to he made out of the Road Fund, said that it was fair that the Treasury should bear half. Does lie not think that the royalty owner ought to bear his share of the burden here? This is really a one-sided scheme. The right hon. Gentleman said yesterday that he is now going from the wilderness of preparation into the fertile and agreeable lands of rate reduction. Who is he taking to the promised land? He is going to lead the Federation of British Industries there, he is going to take the Mine-owners' Association there, and, in addition to them, he is going to take the landowners; but the vast majority of the people of this country he is going to leave on the arid side of Jordan.

It is a very big scheme. The right hon. Gentleman said so. It is, I think, a revolutionary scheme. He is going to abolish the guardians. He is going to upset assessments in this country. He is going to pick and choose those who will be -relieved, not merely in distressed areas but in prosperous areas. In fact, if you want a real revolution, put a Tory Government in power. You will always get it, either by provocation or promotion. Still, two revolutions in a single year are very considerable, and the Home Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer are both engaged in them. But I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he really thinks it fair, when he is going to spend 229,000,000 which he is going to raise out of the general taxpayers, to distribute it in a way which will hear very harshly on very large sections of the community? I wonder whether he has had figures given him showing what the working population of this country pay in rates? The compounding system has concealed that not merely from the whole of the community but has concealed it, unfortunately, from the working classes themselves. They do not realise the extent to which they are paying rates. I have some figures here from Lancashire. There is a family there paying 8s. a week for, I think-, about three rooms. The rates are £4 14s. 6d. in a year. The wages are 55s. a week. There is another case which is still higher, but the wages are higher, it is true. In that case 12s. a week is paid in respect of rent, and that is not unusual. To pay 12s. a week tin respect of rent is very usual in some of our cities, and some people pay very much more. The rates in this case are £12 a year. The rates upon working-class households, which represent so many of these cases, are nearly 10 per cent. of the income. Take the cases in which people are working only two days a week, as in Lancashire, in South Wales, in Durham and in other places. The rates will be just the same, and, if anything, higher; they will be 20 per cent. No relief in those cases—none. Relief of great prosperous concerns in the South—great relief. No relief for the oppressed people of the North, would remind the right hon. Gentleman when he says he is trying to do justice in these cases of the great saying of Mr. Gladstone, that justice means justice to all.