RATING OF LAND VALUES 161 



mittee, which he had himself appointed, and by Clause 13 

 proposed to grant certain sums in relief of local taxation 

 conditionally upon Parliament making provision in some 

 subsequent Act " for dividing the rateable value of land, so 

 as to distinguish the value attributable to houses, buildings 

 or other improvements, and the value attributable to the land 

 without the houses, buildings or other improvements." In 

 other words, if Parliament provided the machinery for im- 

 posing a tax on land values the Government would redeem 

 its numerous promises to give grants to local authorities. 

 The grants to which the Government were pledged were 

 understood to be increases of grants in aid of rates, but so 

 far as it was possible for anyone outside of certain Govern- 

 ment Departments to ascertain, it was believed that, in many 

 rural areas at any rate, the amount conditionally promised 

 by the Finance Bill would be less even than under the old 

 system. In order to be certain of the facts upon which this 

 belief was based, numerous questions were asked by our 

 members in the House, and several members moved for 

 various returns, but the questions were answered evasively, 

 and the returns were all refused. 



The only step the Council were able to take on this date 

 (9th June) was to adopt a report from their Committee, 

 expressing surprise that the Government had published no 

 figures showing the effect of their proposals on the rates in 

 rural districts, and to take great exception to the conditions 

 laid down in Clause 13. They agreed with the principle of 

 abolishing the system of assigned revenues, but strongly 

 dissented from the proposal to withdraw the grant that had 

 been given under the Agricultural Rates Act of 1896. 



The Local Taxation Committee presented a further report 

 on 14th July, expressing great regret at the postponement of 

 Part IV. of the Finance Bill, which involved the loss for the 

 year 1914-15 of the grant which would have been given in 

 aid of rates had that part of the Finance Bill stood. This 

 postponement was due to the inability of the Government 

 to carry out this part of their programme as well as their 

 other political measures of Home Rule, &c. As up to this 



M 



