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81
SECTI0N VI.
LEGISLATI0N OF 1914.
ACTS, CIRCULARS, ORDERS, REGULATIONS, etc.
The Budget Speech of 1914.
Mr. Lloyd George, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, on Monday, May 4th,
made a speech full of important points and worthy of the notice of all local
authorities like Edmonton.
" There has hardly been a year of the last 40 years that successive parliaments
have not cast new functions of an onerous and costly character on the
local authorities, and rarely was any provision made to meet the financial
liabilities. We think we have done our duty in this House the moment we
have passed a beneficial measure and handed over the responsibility of
administering it to the local authorities. The credit is ours, the burden is theirs.
We take no further thought in the matter, and we are surprised when we
discover that many of our precious statutes are really dead letters. In some
districts where the rateable value is low, and the needs of the district are great,
municipal activities are practically at a standstill."
Mr. Lloyd George continued by declaring that therefore it was highly
necessary that there should be a readjustment of the relations between local and
imperial taxation in order to impart energy to the local authorities. He therefore
proposed that a national system of valuation for local taxation should be
set up in which site value should be differentiated from the cost of improvements
to buildings, and annual values from capital values. He stated that the
system of assigned revenues would be abolished and money distributed so as to
give most relief to the necessitous districts, but that in every case efficient
service will be a condition of a grant. He proposed that the grant for Public
Health should be 15 per cent. of the gross and 25 per cent. of the nett
expenditure ; for treatment of tuberculosis the State would find 50 per cent, of
any deficiency; a substantial sum annually for supplying district nurses ; for
establishing pathological and bacteriological laboratories in local authorities'
centres; for health lectures ; and for housing. The State would pay the whole
instead of part of the cost of killing diseased animals. The State grant for
maintenance of main roads would be divided into three classes—class 1, half;
class 2, quarter; class 3, none. Larger grants would be given to the
necessitous school areas. As regards education authorities, he proposed that the
State should provide 50 per cent. of the expenses for provision of meals to needy
scholars; that a grant should be given for physical training and open-air