THE OTHER BLOKE PAYS!

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 188, 10 August 1936, Page 6

THE OTHER BLOKE PAYS!

(By BAXTER O'NEILL.)

Aw. it didn't hurt a bit!

But, boy, oh, boy, what a scare we all got! In llio.-e dim, uncertain days when we didn't know just what Uncle Walter was going to do. or how he was going to get the cash to make his Budget right, how we lived with the ghosts and goblins of holy terror! The only fellows who were laughing were those who were laughing to try and keep their courage up, and they weren't keeping it up very high. 'Member bow some chaps went round with a "told you so" sort of air, looking like prison chaplains who'd come to tell you the sentence couldn't lie commuted? They got a sort of ghoulish jov about it, their sole recompense for having backed the losers on election day. "Oh. yes." they said, "wage? are going up, but what's the 'good of that? You'll get knocked silly when the income tax scale is announced." Result, we were all in a blue funk, and started to wish that Uncle Joe had never heard of Seddon. So great our apprehensive premonitions, e'en the air About vs leaden lay borne down by Budgetary sea re, And doleful expectations of the worst were everywhere And banished optimism from the brightest; liut now to-day ire know where yesterday we'd merely guessed, And blithely rise again the spirits yesterday oppressed; For now we know the best (and worst) it has to be confessed: The Budget doesn't hurt 11s in the slightest. For I don't care a hoot (do you.?) if the land tax is increased, For all my hopes of owning land are long, long since deceased, And so the graduated tax won't stir me in the least, I'll g'adly give the lot to Uncle Walter; It was when I got to guessing what the income tax icoilld be And its possible effects upon plain folk like yon and me That all the world about grew dull and quite bereft of glee, And my optimistic soul, began to flutter. But all is 'well! The Budget is a document of cheer, And we can laugh where yesterday we'd only room for fear, And- gone is all the tendency to shed a gloomy tear, A sense of joy we're everywhere betraying. What though the land tax rises to a burdensome degree? It has to he remembered (and on this tee all agree) That the revenue is needed, and far better it loill be If the other chop (not you and I) is paying. Of course it's tough on the people who own the great broad acres, but I'd rather give sympathy to them than pounds and pounds to Mr. Nash. Just before the Budget came down the pessimists had got me to such a state that T was quite prepared to believe that the Labour party had added a new and secret plank to their platform: "Let not thy Prime Minister know what thy Finance Minister doeth." But all that's happened is that the Government has .continued its excellent policy of more money for everybody. A rise for the baker and pastrycook man, A rise for the carpenter too, A rise for the motorman driving the tram, A rise for all fellows like you. The driver, the plumber, the labouring man Will all have a little more cash, liut one man I know is to hare a lot more— His name?— Finance Minister Nash ! In shillings and pennies you're counting your gains (Amounts of a moderate size) But the Minister running the country's finance Is awarded a five million rise!