Why Pick on Motor Users for Taxation?
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'THE Editor of Cycling has taken offence and I adopted the offensive—the latter in more than the ordinary sense of hostility that it conveys—in respect of our suggestion, in a leader included in our issue dated August 10. that cyclists should be required to obtain riding licences. If this wouldbe David is to be treated seriously he must make a better selection of stones for his sling.
We are not perturbed by the accusation that we have joined the "petulant motoring moaners" who are wailing because the cyclist is still not taxed. We merely ask for fair play for all—not for gallery-quality criticism and arguments.'
He states that our purpose in •life is to write only about lorries for lorry-using folk, forgetting all the road and other interests with which we arc concerned.
Although he is a motorist himself and, therefore, should know better, he states that motorists pay only in part for the repair of the roads which they damage, whilst the major portion of the bill is met out of local rates of which cyclists pay their share. This is begging the question. Fees for drivers' licences are not employed, so far as we are aware, for the purpose of road construction or maintenance.
If the Editor of Cycling is referring to the taxation of motorists, then he is speaking without the book. All such taxation now goes to swell the national revenue, the Exchequer merely doling out such sums as are considered essential for the upkeep of the reads, and motor users cannot fairly be blamed because, whilst they pay something like £1 00,000,000 a year in direct taxation, only a part of this is devoted to such purpose.
If our critic can explain satisfactorily why only one particular class of road user should be subjected to this huge impost, then he is a cleverer man than we are at present inclined to believe him to be.