Some few weeks ago we wrote on the growing menace of bureaucracy in Britain. More and more Parliament tends to put power in the hands.of permanent departments, to frame Acts in outline and leave the: departments to fill in the details, Appeal to the law courts is use-' less, as the Judges can only ina terpret the law as it stane the canna amend he sei)
es of Faniaent wor in case to take legal action praya ly canteen and expense. ive process, as also recently no case is the growing despotism of bureaucracy more keenly felt than in the matter of income tax.
Eeseatnene and calectone the law stands, there exist: all over the country unpaid boards cacionontrs of teeaees justices of the peace are ipso facto members—with paid official working under them, to Sart Oss usin or tobe tax in doubtful cases can be referred, while the Board of In+ land Revenue stands by to review the assessments. The intention of this system was to' to people familiar with local conditions and safeguard the taxpayer from oppression by distant bureaucrats who knew nothing about him and were only farthing to which they could farveivog ao set Unto tunately the payment of officials workings under the unpaid Com-Misioners wen Toft ta Someret House (the Board of Inland Favatue) rice han eer ting down salaries, until it be~ comes harder and harder to get suitable men for the work, with the quite obvious intention of taking their work into its own Nae, shat at eae collectors held at Norwich in August, special emphasis was. laid on this matter, and a warning was issued to taxpayers of the danger they ran of seeing' the unpaid Boards of Commissioners and their staffs abolished and of themselves being. handed over helpless to the us tender mercies of Somerset House.
The question was carried. step farther at the autumn meet ing of the Association of British Chambers of Commerce thie-year, when Sir James Martin, representing the London Chamber, moved a resolution deprecat~ ing the practice of the House of Commons, when in Commi to treat "questions of dotal relating to the method of levying taxation as matters of principle involving the existence of the Government." In other words, whatever is proposed by a Con+ servative Chancellor of the chequer must be regarded as: sacrosanct by members of the Conservative party: must not. even be criticized, certainly no vote must be cast against it. To this was due that very "slim' dodge of the Finance Act of 1927 which, under the guise of simplification and change of name, imposed an extra year's supertax, As another speaker at the Chambers of Commerce Mecina taplied to eke Martin, it is a serious matter for 2 Gorernment ts be detested a finance measure. But it need not come to that if the criticism in debate be keen and well directed, and criticism by the" 'Commons is the more necessary' now that the House of Lords has been shorn of all.power to Meee Sane dates esi As Sir James Martin not unjust~ ly submitted, we appear in England to be "slowly but surely getting back to the position of bygone days, when it was not so much the amount of revenue which the Crown required or the was needed that aroused violent often unreasonable methods by uch it was levied." Incident~ wus syete which the Cone pares the finest possible weapona: for use by a Labour Government. intent on having "socialism it our time." For the intrineig! principle of socialism is to- uh:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.