A New Utility Scheme
The Douglas Committee on the utility scheme for clothing. boots, furniture and other articles has done its work expedi- tiously and well. The utility scheme has long outlived its usefulness, for in a buyers' market ordinary competition does everything necessary to protect the consumer. There is, more- over, the serious consideration that foreign countries are protesting with some reason that commercial discrimination is involved when imported goods of utility standard have to pay purchase-tax while home-produced goods in the same category are exempt. But quite apart from that the scheme as it has developed is inconceivably complicated; there are, for example, no fewer than 781 different specifications for men's shirts. The committee's main proposals are by comparison simple and straightforward. At present there is a fixed maximum price for a particular article. Any article sold above that figure pays purchase-tax of 331 per cent. on the whole price. In future, if the committee's plan is adopted, the tax will fall only on the excess of the selling price over the datum price. If there- fore the datum price for a shirt is 20s. and it is sold at 21s. the tax will be not 7s. but 4d. A further advantage here is that the graslations of tax will be gentle." At present the gap between utility . pods and non-utility, carrying a 331 per cent. tax on the whole price, is so wide that good medium-priced goods are not produced. The poorer consumer is to be protected by the provision that at least half the isroducts affected are to be priced at or below the datum figure and will therefore carry no tax. The Government will do well to adopt the proposals.
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