Feature

To Comment on this article Click Here

It's getting on to Tax Time in Canada and Bruce County.  Debate over coffee about taxes never fails to gather an audience. Emails pass in the night.  What's happening?

 It's interesting to see how people reacted to taxes in the past.  One good example we have is from 1909 in Britain during the time of the successful Prime Minister H.H. Asquith.

It was a time of peace and 1914 was in the future with the River War and the Boar War in the past.

Asquith headed a government that had superstars in it.  They were the best of the best.  Men like Winston Churchill, Lloyd George  and Edward Grey.  In a book about Churchill written by his closest female friend and daughter of Asquith, the beautiful Violet Bonham Carter, we get a glimpse of how taxes were viewed more than 100 years ago.

The same sorts of strains were in effect.  The military needed more arms like new Dreadnaughts.  A big argument between the Admiralty headed by First Sea Lord Sir John Fisher and part of the Liberal Government spearheaded by Lloyd George was red hot.

Churchill sided with his close friend the enigmatic and quick witted George. George could charm anyone with any argument he thought would appeal to them. Somebody mused in front of Grey about Lloyd George:  "I wonder what he is like in an empty room?"  Grey quipped:  "There is nobody there!"

It seems as though the Admiralty wanted to lay down the keels for 6 new Dreadnaughts and George and Churchill, hypnotized by George, thought that 4 was fully enough.  The savings in the hugely expensive Battleships would allow them to fund some of their social projects.  George knew poverty and Churchill had recently seen it through the window of privilege.

Years latter Churchill, the ever alert to German mischief British Bulldog, admitted that he had been wrong but just like the man he was, he had a wry comment that says much about what was going on in Politics.   "The Admiralty wanted 6, we wanted 4 and we compromised on 8!"

Looking at our local taxes we can see much in what they thought 102 years ago.

Here is a passage that is a distant mirror of ourselves to borrow a pair of words from Barbara Tuchman.

"Income tax raised from 1s to 1s. 2d., the yield of death duties (estate taxes) increased from two millions to four (estates worth that  much were taxed on death of the owner at some rate), super tax introduced for the first time, but at so low a rate that on the highest incomes it amounted to 1s. 9d..  This was the most  important new departure that it contained (the new tax bill), but by no  means the most controversial.  Children's allowances of 10 £ were granted on incomes of under 100 £. Taxes on tobacco, spirits and license duties were raised.  Petrol and motor licenses were taxed to finance the improvement of roads, now exposed to wear and tear of the new motor traffic.  What could be milder or more reasonable?"

"But the teeth of the budget lay in the Land Taxes.  There were taxes on undeveloped land and on its increase in value on its so called "unearned increment"  Even more bitterly resented was a plan for the valuation of the land throughout the country.  These were the clauses that inflamed the Tory peers and landowners which saw in them a predatory assault on their property and perhaps even more on their status.  It was not only the purse, but the power of the landlord that was at stake"

Does this not sound like what gets discussed in Bruce County at this time of year as our Towns get down to business on their budgets and tax rates.  

The issues are much alike.  Capital expenses and land taxes, stress on all manner of public and social issues like health care and affordable housing, support for the poor....

We will be listening for new arguments and issues.  Do you think they will differ much from 1909 in their social and economic content?

Source material from "Churchill As I Knew Him" by Violet Bonham Carter.  Eyre & Spottswoode and Collins 1965

Violet Bonham Carter

 

Survey Participate in our latest Saugeen Times survey

Get your views about public buildings recorded.  Take the survey now in progress

^{for world news, books, sports, movies ...}

Saturday, January 22, 2011