To liberate the ratepayer from this wholesale plundering they proposed
to set up in place of casual arbitration and umpiring an official judicial, statutory body, and to entrust to the new Land Ceesmisisioners the power of adjudicating
upon the value of land and ascertaining its market value. The pressure of rates, again, was arresting progress, and must be relieved from the Imperial exchequer. Cottages, business premises and machinery were all paying too much, but he was perfectly certain that many owners of land were not paying anything like their fair share. The international competition in armaments had forced him to provide twenty millions a year more than his predecessor. If he got that twenty millions he could, without putting on an additional penny on any- thing, take off next year eighteenpence in the pound off the rates of everybody in the United Kingdom. In conclusion, Mr. Lloyd George announced that the Government proposed to deal with the evils of the leasehold system as regarded business premises and leasehold property. They also proposed to make a national survey of the housing problem, including an inventory of slums.
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