SLUMS AND LOCAL RATES
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—In your article " The Human Sardines of Shoreditch," you refer to various causes of slums but omit what, in my opinion, is the most important. I refer to our Local Rating System. Whether directly or indirectly through compounding, the tenant ultimately pays the local rates which are levied on the rent he pays, in the same way as the consumer of any commodity, be it tea, sugar, or whisky, ultimately pays the tax levied on it.
A moment's consideration shows that, seeing local rates within recent years have risen by shillings per £ of rent, the tenant is just so much less able to afford a decent house to live in. Years ago it was decided to abolish the window tax, because it tended to make houses unhealthy by restricting the number of windows. If it was bad to tax part of a house, surely it is far worse to tax the whole and yet this is the system of our local taxation.
We recognize now the folly of taxing industry by local rates without consideration of its ability to pay. But what about the individual ratepayer's ability to pay It is whimsical, and would be funny if it were not so sad, to reflect that the slum dwellers, whose fate you deplore, are actually being taxed for the relief of the able-bodied unemployed and the poor. Our present Rating System forces people into slums by depriving them of the means with which to pay rents for better houses.—I am, Sir, &c., P. D. RIDGE-BEEDLE.
116 Hope Street, Glasgow, C.2.
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