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The Budget, and After.

8th May 1928, Page 45
8th May 1928
Page 45
Page 46
Page 45, 8th May 1928 — The Budget, and After.
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

WEfear that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when making his momentous decision to exact that 4d. per gallon on petrol, gave no heed to the trouble and expense he was imposing upon The Commercial Motor! The tax, substantially affects operating costs, and the Tables which have been a valuable contribution by this journal for the past 20 years, to the knowledge of commercial-motor operators, must now be revised and reissued. When we found' that the petition of a great body of motor users was going forward to the Cha4 '* cellor, we foresaw the probability of a change in operating costs which would be more than a transfer from "licence fee", to "fuel," and therefore withheld the orders for the thousands of reprints of the‘1928 Tables which were published in our issue for March 20th.' The Tables are now being revised, and will, we hope, be ready for publication in our next issue.

The Budget speech was notable for two other matters of some concern to our readers. In the revision of the rating system the burden of the highway costs will be more equally spread, the extraordinary anomalies which exist in highway rates (they will 'sometimes in one rating area be four times as high as in that adjoining) will be removed, and a new administrative machinery can be erected reducing materially the number of highway authorities, and ensuring that the roads shall all be brought to the same standard of efficiency. '

The second point that seemed noteworthy is that the Treasury, having raided the Road Fund, appropriated one-sixth of the taxes on private cars as a luxury tax and established the petrol tax, will be content to allow the Minister of Transport to allocate the twentyone millions odd of annual revenue to the roads. For some time highway authorities haye not been able to go ahead with their important schemes for road improvements and have been discouraged from preparing (at great labour and some expense) plans which are not likely to be approved because of the difficulty of financing them.

If the Minister of Transport is assured each year of an approved Budget for his. department, road, and bridge developments can be advanced with much greater confidence than has been possible ii? recent years. Protests are pouring in upon the Chancellor against his various proposals, and already he has had to bend to the storm evoked by his attempt to tax kerosene. That he should have given way causes one to wonder how it was that he had come to make such a mistake—for it was a mistake. His tax on petrol as an extra Impost upon the motor owner and upon road transport, confessedly as a check upon a competitor to the railways, is utterly unfair, and it is to be hoped that such pressure can be brought in the discussions in the House that will at least secure some countervailing relief from the licence duties.

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Organisations: Road Fund
People: Budget

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