§ MR. PELLasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether his attention has been given to the speech of the President of the Board of Trade, as reported in The Times of January 30th, and to the subsequent letter to The Economist of February 21st, asserting that taxation, exceeding seven per cent of their wages, is extorted from the Northamptonshire peasants, and fairly represents the average taxation of labourers' income; and., if Her Majesty's Government share the conviction, whether he will take steps to remedy the alleged injustice?
§ The CHANCELLOR OF the EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)The hon. Gentleman asks me a very unusual Question. He refers to a controversy which took place three or four months ago between The Economist newspaper, himself, and my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade, having reference to the relative taxation of labourers and persons of property; and he asks me now to peruse the correspondence and to give the House my opinion of the merits of the controversy. I read a part of it at the time, and all I can say now is that if there was formerly an excessive burden on labourers compared with that on persons of property, I have done something to redress it by proposing in the Budget to charge on the payers of Income Tax and on persons of property more than three-fourths of the additional taxation now required, and less than one-fourth on the consumer, whether poor or rich. I may remind the hon. Gentleman that he himself described the taxation of the labourer as equal to 3 per cent of his earnings, the great bulk of that taxation being, according to him, "entirely optional."