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Extract from Hausaid retard 19-6-41
WAR REVENUE BILL,
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THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY moved the first reading of a Bill intituled "An Ordinance to amend and consolidate the War Revenue Ordinances of 1940." He said: Your Excellency and Honourable Members will recall that rather more than a year ago, on the 14th March, 1940, the Honourable Mr. H. R. Butters moved the first reading of a
of a Bill intituled "An Ordinance to impose war taxes and to regulate the Collection thereof." At that time to us in Hong Kong the war in Europe seemed almost a remote incident. The initial excitement and the invasion and partition of Poland had been followed by a period of comparative inactivity during the winter of 1939-40. The amazing events of the spring and summer 1940-the invasion of Denmark and Norway, the over-running of Holland and Belgium, closely followed by the defeat and collapse of our great ally, France, which left the British Empire fighting virtually alone and with its back to the wall-were as yet undreamt of. The Battle of Britain had not been fought and won and the Battle of the Atlantic had not reached serious proportions. Here in this Colony the proposal, made in connection with the budget for 1940-41, to raise additional revenue for war purposes was followed by the appointment of a representative War Revenue Committee which in February, 1940, recommended that the desired war revenue should be raised by a combination of taxes on property, on salaries and on corporation and business profits made in the Colony assessed on bases and at rates calculated to impose very broadly the same degree of sacrifice on the several classes of persons affected. The recommenda- tions of the Committee were embodied in a draft War Revenue Bill which was accepted by Government and which was eventually passed by this Council on the 25th April, 1940, as Ordinance No. 13 of 1940. It was hoped, on the basis of a rough estimate by Mr. Caine, that the revenue from these war taxes would be of the order of $6,000,000 each year and that this revenue would be devoted to meeting the cost of collection (estimated at $400,000 annually) and the abnormal expenditure imposed on the Colony by war conditions (estimated at about $1,600,000 annually), thus leaving a substantial balance available for gifts to the Imperial Government in the form of locally-built vessels for the Admiralty and War Department ($5,000,000 to be spent in the two financial years 1940-41 and 1941-42) and perhaps also for further gifts in cash or kind.
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