THE PAY‐ROLL SURCHARGE Available to Purchase

WHAT EFFECT is Mr Selwyn Lloyd's suspended pay‐roll tax likely to have on apprentices and other young workers? According to a remarkable statement put out by the Industrial Training Council, it could well “affect the willingness of employers to expand training arrangements for young people and do much to undermine the council's work”. While the Council's work might be undermined, we doubt whether the pay‐roll tax would make any real difference to the expansion of facilities for training young people in industry. In the short run it might make a marginal difference. In the long term it could do nothing but good. If the Chancellor has real convictions about the way an employee surcharge could lead to more effective use of the country's manpower — by more rapid introduction of automatic and labour saving devices and, concomitantly, by provision of adequate arrangements to train and retrain the skilled workers to man them — we hope he will follow those European countries which have had a pay‐roll tax for years and where the arrangements for training apprentices are much more advanced than those in Great Britain. Why should we be afraid to follow the Continental example?