A POLITICAL REVIVAL.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 214, 8 September 1921, Page 7

A POLITICAL REVIVAL.

BUSINESS MEN INTERESTED. THE CAMPAIGN FOR ECONOMY. <From Onr Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. Among the cheering signs of the times are the growing , interest of business men in the political affairs of the country and the increasing readiness of the whole community to discuss public questions from the national rather than from the party point of view. The lirst may be due to the growing burden of taxation, which presses heavily upon commercial interests, and the second to the broader outlook engendered by the demands of war and emphasised by the necessities of peace. The two tendencies, whatever their origin, are particularly noticeable just now in Wellington, where business men were wont to look askance at politics and the great body of citizens to ally themselves with one party or another, with only a superficial regard for the principles they accepted. One effect of the change has been to remove much of the former .asperity from the discussion of public questions and public men. The captious party spirit of the past may not be dead, but outside the ranks of "extreme Labour it is sleeping so soundly that its awakening seeme, at worst, a catastrophe of the far distant future. I SYMPATHETIC CRITICISM. I In these circumstances it has been comparatively easy for business men to get tozcther and di=euss public questions within their sphere with a kno\vledso and understanding rarely at the disposal of the Government and the State. They may differ from the ■Government on many points, but having- set party politics, "in the narrow sense, aside they can present their view of any particular problem free from the personal bias of the partisan. The taxation of companies, for instance, is one of the subjects with which many of them are necessarily familiar. They are not Tailing at the Government for perpetuating an inqiiitable application of the income j tax to corporate bodies of investors, | small and larae; but they are pointing, out to Ministers that the system, in addition to being grossly unjust to many shareholders in many companies, is a very grave menace to the commercial and industrial development of the country. . If people who have a few hundreds or a j few thousands invested in enterprises j of this description remain liable to an | exorbitant rate of taxation, whether ( their means are little or bier, it is certain | they will in increasing numbers look! around for other employment for their , money. MINISTERIAL ADMISSIONS. That the representations made by the business men, and endorsed almost unani-j mously by the Press of the Dominion,! have "not fallen on deaf ears, has been made Hbundantlv clear. Mr. Maseey, 1 having had the facte placed before him,' stated at the beginning of the year that) something would have to be done to relieve the companies of the unfair bur-, den they were carrying. Since then, it' is true, the Prime Minister's locum J tenen3 has said it would be impossible to collect the tax from the individual! shareholder instead of from the com-| panics and so remove much of the in-, justice of the system; but, with charac-j teristic loyalty to his officers, he obvi-| ouslv was quoting the opinion of the financial head of the department, who apparently thought a little extra labour in his office might he legitimately described as an impossibility. The system demanded by the business community I hae been in operation in Ensland and in I Australia for years past, and so far as| can be ascertained from the best sources' of information, costs no more than docs the system in operation here. FOR THE SMALL MAN. Sir Francis Bell, scarcely appreciating the spirit in which representations hadj been made to him on the subject, alsoj implied that it was the managers oil companies find (he large shareholders who were chiefly concerned in tht> change) in the incidence of taxation. So farj from this being the case it would be the) smallest shareholders who would gain most from a just method of assessment, j But the business men are not interested in the re-adjustment of taxation alone. The\ - are even more urgent in their demand for well-ordered economics in the Public Service. They hold the enormous( increase in the departmental expenditure I pince the conclusion of the war largely! responsible for the crushing taxation J under which the whole country is etagI gering, and they are anxious to aesi=t ' the Government in finding means of relief. They believe this expenditure: could be reduced by two or three millions' without impairing the efficiency of the service in any way, and with advantages which would reach every section of the community. Towards this end| ■ they offer the Government their /heartiest co-operation.