I agree with Deputy Briscoe in regard to granting free transport to the widows of Old IRA veterans. Before he sat down I intended making the suggestion myself, and I hope the Minister will look into it.
Deputy O'Kennedy said he was delighted that 50,000 people would escape from the tax net. For how long, for a week or a month? This is only publicity, because we know that when they get an increase in wages, especially now that the turnover tax has been increased and the cost of living goes up, they will be back in the tax net again. The Minister has also given greater interest on savings. This, again, will not be of much use to the worker because he will not have money to save.
The turnover tax increase of 2½ per cent is, on my reckoning, 1/40th, but in actual fact the trader has to pay 1/39th. If he is running a van or a lorry he has to pay turnover tax on the purchase of petrol. He is collecting a huge sum of money on which there is a great risk, particularly if it is a cash business. He may have a dishonest assistant and even if he loses money he still has to pay turnover tax on it. Therefore, if he charged only 2½ per cent in a business based on a small profit, as are some of the supermarkets, he would be out of business in the morning. The people collecting turnover tax should send out leaflets to every trader explaining the exact amount of turnover tax, which is nearer to 3 per cent than it is to 2½ per cent.
There are two methods of charging turnover tax in the retail business. One is to charge a price which includes the tax. Another is to charge a price and add the turnover tax. The trader should only pay £4 14s 6d tax on £100 turnover, but 60 or 70 per cent of the traders in Dublin are paying £5 on every £100, which is nearly three per cent. A grocer's shop is, therefore, being done out of 5s 6d on every £100. The supermarket which adds the turnover tax to the price of the goods is not being done. There is a tremendous amount of trust given to traders to pay the turnover tax and it should be paid since it has been collected.
Is it right that the Revenue Commissioners should charge tax on losses? During the last strike a certain publican cashed cheques which were returned without payment. The Revenue Commissioners were looking for income tax on that £4,000 although he was at the loss of £4,000 and was also paying turnover tax on that amount. It may be legally right but it is morally wrong. If the Revenue Commissioners do that they deserve to be done by the citizens of this country.
The Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy Colley, was shouting about a maximum wage increase of 7 per cent at the time of the maintenance strike. He did not say it beforehand; he waited until something happened. Going on the history of 1963 turnover tax is bound to have an effect on wage increases of 7 or 8 per cent. Even Mr. Lemass, when he was Taoiseach, added 5 per cent to the 7 per cent increase that was practically agreed between employers and the unions. That five per cent was either to buy the two by-elections in Cork and Kildare or to compensate for the turnover tax. You can make up your mind which it was. I would say both.
Previous speakers from the Government side say this is a small tax, that everybody pays a little and the weaker sections are compensated. We know how well they have been compensated. We saw what happened in 1963 when I got into the Dáil on this issue in an area where Fianna Fáil had three seats, Fine Gael two and Labour none. The result was that Fianna Fáil were annihilated. I am not boasting about it but merely pointing out the effect of the turnover tax.
When the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Deputy Blaney, came into the Dáil he went back in history and attacked everyone in the Fine Gael Party. He misquoted Fine Gael by saying that Fine Gael said that the 2½ would rise to 15. What was said was that the 2½ would rise to 5 and more and that over a number of years the increase in prices would rise to 15 per cent of the present value. He said the lesser people had been provided with money to make up for the turnover tax. The lesser people are being paid 17s 6d, and that is the maximum. That is a great deal less than the rate by which wages are going up at the moment. It is about 25 per cent of the rate. Workers are getting increases of £3, £4, and up to £6 in certain cases over a period of two years. The 17s 6d is not 25 per cent of that. In other words, the proportion to the average wage is going down.
Then we had the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Deputy Blaney, saying that the social insurance contribution in Ireland is only 28s 3d, whereas in Britain it is £4 3s and he asked how could we expect to get the same benefits. Every worker in this country is paying in respect of health in a separate charge; he is paying it in rates; he is paying it to his employer in respect of sickness benefit; he is paying it to his union and he is also paying his social insurance contribution. When all these contributions are assessed one finds that he is paying every bit as much if not more than his counterpart in Britain.
Then we had the old Fianna Fáil piece of propaganda trotted out that we have heard over the years in order to brainwash the people—the reference to the reduction in the old age pension from 10s to 9s. They are taking that out of context. In the twenties it was normal practice that if the cost of living went up wages went up and if the cost of living went down, wages went down. In 1923-24 the old age pension was reduced from 10s to 9s. It went up to 10s in 1927 and it was 10s in 1932; it was 10s in 1947. After 16 years of Fianna Fáil Government it was 10s—not increased at all. The first Government to increase the old age pension was the inter-Party Government when they gave 5s I think.
I should also like to point out that at that time 9s or 10s was practically one-half of the average wage. The present old age pension is not half the average wage or even one-third of the average wage. So, proportionally, the old age pensioners were being paid more at that time. The Government was handed over to Fianna Fáil in 1932. The exports of 1932, prior to the economic war, were never reached, money-wise, until 1948, when the inter-Party Government were again in power. These things were not explained.
I may not be an expert on agriculture—I am a Dublin Deputy—but I have farmed a great deal more than many a countryman and for a big part of my life. I do not say that I know a great deal about agriculture, particularly modern agriculture. Every time the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries spoke about agriculture he spoke about the amount of money spent; he gave no details of individual income. I was in France in 1947. At that time the rate of exchange was 980 francs to the £. You could prove you were a millionaire on that basis. The rate at present is a little less than 14 francs to the £. There is a big difference. The Minister mentioned that in 1960 farm income was £111.8 million and that it is £173 million now —an increase of 55 per cent. In 1960, what was the income of a worker, what was the income of any business, and what is that income now? Has it not doubled or trebled while the farm income has gone up by 55 per cent? The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries set out to look for £14 million and then tried to make the case that £4 million was doing a tremendous amount for the farmer. He said they were going to get 8 per cent. He worked it all out, taking buoyancy into account and suggested that the farmers would get an 8 per cent increase. That is 1 per cent less than Deputy Colley promised. So, he is going to keep the farmers to 8 per cent when everybody else is getting from 17 to 40 per cent.
I was in Longford during the by-election campaign. There is a big turf scheme in Lanesboro, the village my father came from. A Minister stood up there and pointed out that Fianna Fáil had done this and that Fianna Fáil had done that. One would think that the Minister had gone out with a shovel and pick and had done it himself. The workers did it. Various Ministers in Fianna Fáil started it in a small way and Mr. William Norton made a huge job of it. During the by-election campaign Fianna Fáil were claiming credit for everything that had been done. How often in by-election campaigns have we seen them taking films for television of the various co-operatives started by the farmers and trying to get credit for them? This is the way in which they are trying to get over the question of the turnover tax.
The reason for the increases in social welfare benefits is to keep people up with inflation and the cost of living. It has been in the last number of years that inflation set in in this country since 1961-62. They inflated everything so that when they were paying back money on loans to the people they were paying back money that had lost value.
Two years ago a proper system of children's allowances should have been introduced. That would have avoided the huge wage increases that came afterwards. As I have said many times, if you take three men working in the same job and earning the same salary, a man with eight children who is paying £6 a week for his house is in poverty; a second man with two children may be paying £2 10s a week for his house and the third man, with one child, may be paying nothing for his house. That may be an exaggeration but it does illustrate the point that if the money is given by way of children's allowance the first and second man will get the increase, whereas the third man will not and that, therefore, with a proper system of children's allowances there would not be the same demand made to unions to seek greater wages.
Let us consider the family allowances payable in various countries in 1966 for the first child: Ireland, 10s; United Kingdom, nil; Netherlands, 59s 6d; Luxembourg, 77s. 9d; Italy, 65s 4d; France, 99s 8d; Belgium, 80s. In many of these countries the cost of living is a great deal higher than ours and wages are lower than they are here because the workers are getting these family allowances. Now let us take the figure for the second child: Belgium and France, nil; Germany, 44s 8d; Italy, 65s. 4d; Luxembourg and the Netherlands, nil; United Kingdom, 34s 8d; Ireland, 15s 6d. For the third child the figures are: Belgium, 167s 6d; France, 170s 8d; Italy, 65s 4d; United Kingdom, 43s 4d; Ireland, 26s 6d. I presume that the rate in these countries has gone up also, with ours, in the last period. With a proper system of children's allowances spending power can be more evenly spread.
The Minister for Health, Deputy Childers, took part in this debate. The Minister for Health is consistent. Over the years he has said that we should not look for something out of a country unless we earn it, that wages should not increase unless the country has produced the wealth with which to pay them. It is a pity that he does not make all the members of the Government think in that way. They all say it but they do not believe it and they do not practise it. Deputy Childers also spoke in money terms and did not refer to items. He mentioned the amount of money spent on housing in 1957—£10 million—I may be wrong —that could be 1960 but I think it is 1957—as against £35 million in 1969, but he did not tell us the number of houses built for that £10 million and the number of houses built for the £35 million in 1969. I will guarantee there were more houses built for the £10 million than there were for the £35 million. I will also guarantee that they were bigger and better houses. Practically all of the £10 million was supplied by the Government. I will guarantee that the £35 million was provided by the banks, some by the Government, some by the building societies and some by the insurance companies, though they are pulling out of this kind of exercise now because there is not enough money in it for them.
Again, the people who have saved for a deposit on a house—be it £1,000 or £1,200—will not find there is 5 per cent added to the cost of the house. The only exclusion is cement and cement products. The Minister for Health mentioned social welfare and he said it had gone up from £15 million in 1958 to £25 million in 1969. That sounds marvellous. By how much has taxation increased in the meantime? By how much have wages increased? There was a sum of £20 million from the turnover tax. I do not know what is collected in wholesale tax. There is revenue from PAYE. Revenue from spirits, excluding wines and mineral waters, has increased. In 1964 the revenue was £21.6 million. In 1965 it was £24,743,000. In 1966 it was £27,330,000. In 1967 it was £32 million. In 1968 it was £34,899,000 and in 1969 it was £41,508,000. In 1970 an extra £12 million or £13 million was collected. All this revenue has been dissipated. I do not know where it has gone. The increase of 17s 6d sounds lovely and it will be lovely for the old age pensioner to handle it, but that is all the old age pensioner will do with it; it will disappear twice as quickly as would 5s in the forties had Fianna Fáil seen fit to give an increase of 5s at that time.
The Minister for Health also talked about a prices and incomes policy. He said that Fine Gael only give lip service to such a policy. He knew quite well that what he was saying was not true. When the turnover tax was introduced in 1963 the economy was in a bad way and in his speech on the Budget in that year the late Deputy Sweetman had this to say, and I am quoting from volume 202 of the Official Report, column 133:
Where is this Budget going to help the development of an incomes policy? We said last year and the previous year that the development of an incomes policy was vitally necessary to the country. We cannot afford to have the continued effect of play and counterplay between opposing interests in our economic life. This Budget is not going to do much to help the situation and neither did the hamhanded White Paper issued by the Government three months ago. All that this Budget and that White Paper have shown is that this Government do not understand what an incomes policy really is. Their policy has been concerned solely with restricting earnings but by an incomes policy we would have expansion in salaries and wages, expansion in profits, in agricultural earnings and in social service benefits. Of course, that has never been Fianna Fáil understanding of these matters. Instead they have always preferred to rely on incomes.
That was in 1963. In 1962 he also referred to an incomes policy. I was instrumental in drawing up the Fine Gael policy document on incomes other than wages and salaries. Let me quote the policy enshrined in that document:
Fine Gael now reiterates its commitment to the introduction of a genuine incomes policy in this country, and in government it will seek the co-operation of both sides of industry in pursuing this policy. We join with the National Industrial Economic Council in its view— endorsed by trade unions and employers alike—that:
"any incomes policy which does not embrace all categories of money income (is) inadequate and inequitable.... The measures relating to other incomes should be set out in advance and applied to them contemporaneously with the application of an incomes policy to wages and salaries..."
It will be recalled that the Council went on to point out the undesirability of control of profits:
"It is not the purpose of an incomes policy to prevent profits from growing ... nor is it envisaged that the profits of each individual firm should grow at no more than a certain rate.... Even if control of profits were desirable —and this is not the case where they are earned competitively, for example, from exporting—such control could not be operated in advance, but only in arrears, after the profits have been earned."
It is Fine Gael's view also that in a mixed economy like ours a competitive environment provides the best mechanism to prevent excessive profits. Fine Gael will strengthen and extend to areas not now covered, the existing legislation against cartels, monopolies and restrictive practices, so as to ensure the maintenance of competition.
The Council's view on prices policy as expressed in this Report were also in harmony with Fine Gael's Just Society policy of price surveillance; the Council offered no support for the discredited policy of rigid price control pursued by the present Government. Except where it proves impossible to create or maintain conditions of competition between private firms, or where a temporary or artificial shortage of goods exists, Fine Gael does not favour price control; but where for one reason or another competition does not operate, it recognises and accepts the duty of the public authorities to protect the consumer against exploitation by private monopolists or cartels.
Fine Gael joins with the NIEC in seeing the role of incomes policy as concerned not with the profit earned by companies most of which is and should be ploughed back for future investment and productivity but with the residue of profits accruing to individuals. Fine Gael recognises the undesirability of dividend control, as well as of profits control, and it is for this reason that it has proposed measures designed to ensure (in the words of the NIEC which in 1965 adopted the Fine Gael proposal) "that the rate of increase in aggregate post-tax purchasing power derived from investment is no higher than the rate of increase in aggregate post-tax wages, salaries and other incomes." Because these measures would be based on the trend of total dividend income, related to that of wage and salary income, they would not have the adverse economic effects of dividend control, which hits the successful firm which has nothing extra to pay out of dividends.
In supporting these policies, which have been endorsed by both management and trade union representatives, Fine Gael rejects the negative attitude of the present government which in the three years since these NIEC proposals were put forward has done nothing whatever to implement them.
The Government have moved in regard to health and education on lines first mooted by Fine Gael. If they had done so three years earlier they could have done it gradually instead of jumping into it and making a mess of it. The health scheme was thrown around between three or four Ministers. One promised everything; another did nothing; the third man is working hard on it and we do not know whether he will succeed or not. If this had been done at the right time and not kept three or four years in abeyance it could have been done better. The Government jumped into improving the educational system, not knowing what they were doing with the result that it is costing four times what they reckoned.
The Tánaiste said that in West Germany between 1963 and 1969 wages went up by 50 per cent and the cost of living by 24 per cent. I agree that in most of what he said he was down to earth and thinking of the country rather than individuals but he should complete his statements. He said that in Ireland wages went up by 71 per cent and the cost of living by 34 per cent but he forgot to mention the social benefits they have in Germany which are far greater than what we have here. There are free holidays, swimming pools and various other things provided for the workers. On top of this in Germany there was 44s 8d for the second child against our 15s 6d in 1966. Their maximum is 125s as against our 26s 6d. Wages went up by a good percentage and they also have better benefits than we have.
The Revenue Commissioners are quick to tax a man on money of which he did not have the use. Would they spend the same time getting at foreign combines that overcharged for their research done in other countries, in America, or Germany, or elsewhere? These firms send out their research teams, getting new products and then when they make their profits here they put a huge proportion of that cost against the firm here. Quite a few firms do this. The bulk of their research and sales costs is borne by the Irish company where they are getting away with it. Probably they also get away with it in other countries.
It is seldom that the Minister speaks without referring to productivity in the free trade area. We went into this free trade area thinking we would join the EEC in 1971. I think we should now look at it again since we are not in the EEC, and get better terms from England, if we did it only for training in meeting competition. In regard to training for the EEC it is strange to think that we have the Government putting a surtax of 5 per cent on Irish workers over what English workers have to pay. The Irish worker must now spend 5 per cent more on buying goods than the English worker spends and the Irish worker must already pay more for these goods because we are a small country and cannot mass-produce. Then we are asking the Irish workers to be competitive with England. First, food is slightly dearer here and then the Government put on 5 per cent on food, clothing, drink and all the things the worker must buy, or things that he can enjoy. Yet, the fur coats and items that only the wealthy can afford are taxed at only 5 per cent also. In England you have no tax on food but you have tax on luxury articles.
English workers also have better children's allowances, better health services and better social benefits. Then we have Ministers saying: "We want more productivity." How can we get more productivity when they are paid more in England while we are charging them more. We are killing the initiative of the workers by this 5 per cent surcharge. Even in the case of the two commodities which were cheaper here than in England, semi-luxuries or semi-necessaries such as cigarettes and drink, the position has changed. Our prices were below the English prices for many years. Now, our tax on drink is greater than in England and in the case of cigarettes it is very close to the British figure.
Government speakers have said that people must be taxed in order to provide for the weaker sections. Nobody denies this, but how much of the taxation goes to the weaker sections? How much of it is wasted by Government inefficiency? I have heard the Minister for Local Government saying that he was down to earth and that he had no imagination and did not believe in it. One of the greatest assets anybody can have is imagination. I would put it before brains or money or anything else.
In 1959 a house of about 1,250 square feet cost about £1,800 gross. Today that house or probably one a little smaller costs £5,400. Houses have nearly trebled in value despite the fact that many materials have been replaced by cheaper materials, by new inventions such as PVC piping instead of copper piping. We also have higher interest rates which is probably the case all over the world. Also, because of the attitude of the present Minister for Finance to banking the banks are no longer willing to give a loan as they used do some years ago to families over a period of five or six years. Today you can only get a very short-term loan from these banks and if you want money for any length of time you go to merchant banks and they are very short-term also or to an insurance company. You pay dearer rates of interest which puts up costs. The whole banking system has completely changed over a number of years past.
Insurance companies that should be putting up money for housebuilding are putting it into property companies. They can make more money in this way because they can take a share in a block of flats and after seven years they can increase the rent and get a higher return on their money. When one went to a bank four or five years ago looking for money any bank manager would tell you that there were more people looking for money than could be accommodated. They rationed it out and you got a percentage. If you were the best businessman in the world you did not get all the money. You got a percentage of what they had to give out. They gave it to the small and the big people.
What is happening today? The insurance companies will give money to the big operator, the huge operator, the big builder, the big businessman, the man who can give them a return of 20 per cent on their money. They will not give money to the house purchaser who can give them a return of only 8 or 9 per cent. People are buying up land all over the city and they are given money by these Irish insurance companies. The money belongs to the Irish people, the ordinary savers, but the insurance companies are giving it to the big operators. They become cartels and buy up the limited amount of serviced land in this city. I am speaking about Dublin because I know it in detail. I do not know the other cities.
The insurance companies are looking for 30 per cent interest from the big operators, the people who are building these flats and offices. The money is given to them by Irish insurance companies instead of being used to provide houses and to cut down the cost of housing. If they were like the banks they would give so much to each person. There would be competition and the land would not go at a big price. At present the big operator can say: "I can buy the land and hold on to it. It must go up in value if nobody else has land. I have the only land and I can get my price."
In 1961, a site with a 35 to 40 foot frontage cost between £275, £300 or £400. It costs £2,250 now. That is five times the price it was. The reason is that we had two Ministers for Local Government who sat down and asked the corporation questions so that they could answer questions in here. Neither was a businessman. At the moment in the Department of Local Government there are civil servants who spend their time checking on whether a person is entitled to a grant of £275. There are inspectors going out and making inspections. There are people in the office making checks. I do not know how many are involved altogether but there are quite a number. I know the grant is up to £300 now. There is another section checking on the turnover tax so there is one set of civil servants checking on the money being sent out and another checking on it coming back in again.
We know the amount of money which was spent on the flats in Ballymun. One Irish person was involved in that consortium. The rest were English people. Those flats could have been built by 50 Irish builders in a conventional way and much more cheaply, thereby injecting money into this country and not letting the profits go out of it. We have in those flats doors imported on licence by a person from England. I do not have to say what party he was a member of and how well up in it he is.
We have seen today that out of 73 lifts in the Ballymun scheme, 53 are not working. I asked the Minister today are they good lifts or are they bad lifts, were they bought in a job lot or did some pal get the licence to bring them in. He said Fine Gael were jealous of those flats. He should go up and ask the tenants what they think of the flats. Some of them are living 14 storeys up and the lifts are out of order. I guarantee that at least two lifts in every block are out of order every second or third week.
An extra 2½ per cent has now gone on to about 30 or 40 per cent of the builders' costs, including labour and land. The repayments on these houses are £6 to £8 a week. Take a man who after the next wage increase has £20 a week and is paying £8 a week in outgoings. He is worried about the five per cent turnover tax. He is in real trouble. That man, particularly if he has a few children, must demand more wages. If he had proper children's allowances he could wait for another year or so. We used to laugh at the stop-go economy—although I did not because it was not good for the country—we had here to suit elections. That may be all right for Fianna Fáil when an election is due. They said: "We will put money into the economy and keep it going. A bit of inflation will do no harm." After the election there was either a Budget or a clamp down. That was all right for the Fianna Fáil Party but businessmen have to look ahead.
When things are going well for a small businessman he can expand but, as soon as they contract, he is stuck for money and he has to sell. Some big English firm, a supermarket chain or a big furniture shop, buys up that place. If you walk down any of the main streets in Dublin I guarantee that about 50 per cent of the shops are owned by a combine in England and the profits from those shops go out of the country eventually.
Usually in a Budget debate it is quite easy to attack an increase on drink, cigarettes and petrol. Usually there is something for the old age pensioners. This year we heard the Taoiseach standing in for the Minister for Finance saying that the old reliables like drink, cigarettes and petrol could not be hit any more and that they had to get a more broadly based tax. He still hit the drink, petrol and cigarettes. He hit every single thing that is sold except, I think, medicines for animals.
I should like to give an example of the money that is collected and the risks involved. Take a good business and take the round figures. Take a business with a turnover of £100,000 per annum. We will say the profit on that is 10 per cent. That is £10,000. The Government collect £5,000, roughly, on the turnover tax. The company have £10,000. Take income tax and corporation profits tax off that. The company have £4,875 and the Government have somewhere in the region of £11,000 odd out of that company. The Government collect that with practically no risk but, if there is one dishonest man on that premises, the company will not get £10,000 profit.
I am not saying you would make that profit on that turnover. You would not. I am just taking round figures. Dishonest people are in the minority but, if there is a dishonest person on the premises, the Government's take goes down infinitesimally but the owner's goes down completely. That is the risk involved in this turnover tax. We can bring that down lower to a man who is barely existing. If the Government have to collect their tax on £15,000 the owner may have nothing.
I think you could draw up this Budget in your sleep. I do not know what all the talk was about. Fianna Fáil said it was a great Budget. It is practically identical to the 1963 Budget, when Fianna Fáil were in serious financial trouble. Again, they are in financial difficulties and to solve them they have presented the same style Budget. Again, it is the people's necessaries that will cost more—the loaf of bread, shoes, boots, clothing. Again, the increase in the turnover tax will affect the housewife's loaf in the same way and to the same extent as the fur coat of the rich.
When I was a candidate for Dublin North East some years ago, the election was being fought on the turnover tax issue. The present Minister for Finance, then Minister for Justice, went on television and told the people the Government were putting on a 2½ per cent turnover tax but that they were giving the old age pensioners an extra 2s 6d a week which, he said, would more than compensate them—indeed, he said, it would give them a balance of 1s a week. Of course, this did not happen; of course, the Minister was making a pure mathematical calculation.
Later, we had Deputy Lemass, as he then was, who could not trust three Independent Deputies and had to hold two by-elections, one in Cork and one in Kildare. He said in the Dáil that he thought the people should get increases in incomes but he did not approve of the agreement for 7 per cent or 8 per cent between workers and employers. He said the people should be compensated for increases in the cost of living. People with large families suffer most from a cost of living increase yet to the parents of those large families he gave 1s 1d per week in respect of each child. How far would 1s 1d go to feed a child? In England when ice cream was taxed it was said that the Government were taking food out of children's mouths. Here every item of food has been taxed. Even rates and deposits now bear this 5 per cent tax.
Fianna Fáil have done nothing but speak about amalgamation of trade unions. They have done nothing about discussing better industrial relations. Indeed, Deputy O'Kennedy this afternoon blamed the trade unions. It is up to the Government to discuss matters with the unions.
Deputy FitzGerald spoke about the Civil Service. He said that higher civil servants are so overloaded with day-to-day duties that they are unable to devote any time to policy planning. Some years ago when top civil servants were given an increase of £800 per annum I said that if they were worth it they should get it. The same applies to comparable workers in private enterprise. Top civil servants today cannot do the work they are asked to do and we have the terrible example of Ministers shouting at functions all over the country when they should be sitting in their offices doing the work of their Departments which they now expect their top civil servants to do.
Fianna Fáil took off the food subsidies and they are the only party to have put a tax on food. Not even in Britain did they put a tax on foodstuffs. Our national debt in 1963 was just more than £500 million. Now it is £1,000 million. If a private individual did business like that he would be thrown out by the bank manager. Finally, I calculate that what happened in 1963 will happen again as a result of the steep new rise in the cost of living. This is becoming a progressive increase and every shilling we add, every 2½ per cent we add, will worsen the situation. It will mean greater inflation. The turnover tax is the worst type of tax that could be imposed, particularly because we are in a free trade agreement with Britain.
