TAXES AND HARDSHIPS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 92, 19 April 1932, Page 3

TAXES AND HARDSHIPS.

When I read the suggested taxation of the Government I wonder am I mad, or are they? One gets a little hope from the fight tho Labour members arc putting up by their suggested amendments, assisted by a few brave independents who dare to support them. Imagine reducing the old age pensions to help balance the Budget. Surely every man and woman with a particle of human kindness in their composition will oppose that and similar suggested taxation that will cause further suffering to thoso already depriving themselves of the necessaries of life to pay their debts. Why not make up the revenue by a heavy tax on all luxuries and pleasures. One seldom sees even an unemployed man without a cigarette hanging on his lips while buying a race card. Tax every woman who wears imported silk stockings until she is forced to put her too much worshipped limbs into New Zealand wool. Then what about cutting every one's income down to £250 a year (Primo Minister included) for, say, two years, or until the depression lifts? Who would suffer? Where would bo seen the mother's tears for children's cries of hunger, or father contemplating another use for the gas stove than cooking his dinner? A. D. HAMILTON.