In fulfilment of an offer made a few days earlier,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer met a number of experts at the Treasury on Wednesday to discuss the Land-tax Form IV. Those present included representatives of the Surveyors' Institution, the Land Agents' Society, the Auctioneers' and Estate Agents' Institutes, the Incorporated Law Society, as well as the Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue and the Registrar of the Land Registry. The discussion was concerned mainly with the time and expense involved in answering the questions, and it was suggested that some of the compulsory questions should be transferred to the optional category. Mr. Lloyd George in his reply made the important admission that it was not incumbent on the owner to go to the expense of getting information when he could not answer questions by his unaided knowledge. The bolding of the Conference may be fairly regarded as an admission that the discontent and confusion caused by Form IV. were not altogether imaginary. At the same time, Mr. Lloyd George deserves credit for his conciliatory attitude in consenting to hold a public Conference on the subject.
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