§ SIR HENRY KIMBER (Wandsworth)I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the St. Lucia Property Tax Bill, which, in the opinion of the majority of the inhabitants of the Colony, will cause a serious set-back to the agricultural improvement lately started, has received the approval of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and in view of the riots in the island last year and the probability of a renewal of the disorders if the Bill is forced through the Council, and the effect such a tax had in the Island of Dominica and which caused riots there and necessitated the sending out of a Commission which recommended the abolition of the law, whether his Majesty's Government would request the Administrator of the Colony of St. Lucia to withdraw the Bill which is before the Council; whether seeing that the Colony has a balance of £25,000 to its credit lying idle in the hands of the Crown Agents, he will explain the necessity for further taxation; and whether he will give a Return of the value of the products of the Colony for the past year and the amount of revenue collected by the Government during that period.
§ THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Colonel SEELY, Liverpool, Abercromby); I understand that the riots of last year did not arise from the Property Tax Bill. The St. Lucia Property Tax Bill of 1907 was postponed early in this year, and the Secretary of State agreed to the appointment of a committee to consider the repeal of the Road Tax and the substitution of taxes on property and on incomes derived from other sources than land. We have not yet received from the Governor a report on the result of the Committee's labours, nor any further Bill. I cannot well discuss the necessity for a readjustment of taxation in reply to a Question, but I may point out that the existence of a reserve surplus balance (which is earning interest and not lying idle) does not relieve the Government from the duty of securing equilibrium in the revenue and expenditure. The annual report containing the statistics desired in the last paragraph of the hon. Baronet's Question has not yet been received from St. Lucia, but will be laid on the Table when received in the usual manner.