IN THE PUBLIC MIND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 234, 3 October 1934, Page 6

IN THE PUBLIC MIND.

THE SALES TAX

BURDEN ON INDUSTRY.

(To the Editor.)

The most unpopular tax ever imposed is the sales tax. If we were to ask the shop, keepers and manufacturers what they wanted' during the slump they would answer in one voice, "More sales." If we ask the buying public what they want dur.ng the slump they will answer in one voice, "More buying power." The sales tax came along and further widened the gap between buyer and seller. Some people eeem to be under the impression that the tax is charged only on sales made and moneys collected, but this is not so. A (manufacturer recently told me that he kept very little stock now as he had to pav sales tax on the stuff which he made and not on what he sold, and that there was no allowance for bad debts. It would be hard to think of a more vicious form of taxation. We hear a lot of talk about encouraging local industries. Yet we allow this load to be put. on to our staggering industries. The time for a political party with modern views on taxation and a determination to fight the excessive Government interference which ie playing such havoc with private enterprise is overdue. The Labour party stands for more Government control in face of the disastrous results we see around us.

E. STEVENSON. RELIGION AND SCIENCE. I am sorry that I am now compiled to accuse "A.E.C" of making a definite statement on an important matter with which he is obviously not conversant. He tells us that Professor J. S. Haldane is "a representative of that fast-dwindling band who subscribe to vitalism." Hβ has obviously not even read the relevant literature published by the professor; still less understood him. In his book; "The Philosophical Basis ofi Biology," Professor J. S. Haldane saye (page 28): "Life cannot be represented by the conception of a 'vital principle 5 or by the veiled vitalistic conception of 'vital activity,' acting and reacting with a physically interpreted basis or environment. I am not, and never have been, a vitalist, although simply because I am unable to accept, the traditional mechanistic biology the last few decades, I am often regarded as a vitalist. Vitalism in any form has the same fundamental defect as the mechanistic theory of life." Similar thoughts are expressed on pages 8, 15, 21 and 102 of the same book, as well as in the other books by Professor J. S. Haldane which I mentioned. This quotation definitely discredits "A.E.C" as a serious writer on serious subjects. His suggestion that I endorse the wild statements of Professor J. B. S. Haldane, because I do not wish to argue with "A.E.C" is on about the same level of controversial absurdity. "A.E.C" gave a quotation, from the son. May I be allowed to give a quotation from the father? On page 105 of the above-mentioned book J. *S. Haldane writes: "We are still living in an age which I think our successors will some day look back u.pon with curiosity and wonder, as an age characterised especially by physical realism— an age blind in some, but by no means all, respects to what will then appear as outstanding spiritual reality and concealing this behind scientific abstractions, which it ihaa taken'ifor representations of reality and proceeded -to bow down before, though they were only -its own creations. . . . We can see signs of the passing of this idolatrous age of physical realism or materialism." It now transpires that "A.E.C's" first letter was an attempt to make capital for the atheistic cause out of a. recent controversy about Marxism andf freer dom. I am left wondering whether the socalled rationalists think they are likely to gain, converts by an alliance with the irrationality, of Bolshevism and its insidious campaign of militant atheism. H. K. AECHDALL. ■ King's College. ■ • ■ .- ;

LIFT ETIQUETTE

Perhaps as a liftman my experience and observation may have some weight oil the t

subject of lift* etiquette. This demands a gentleman should remove his hat in the presence of a lady; also that ladies should be allowed to take precedence in the right of way on leaving. Common sense says that gentlemen holding their hats in their hands take up much room in a crowded lift, and the lady's right, in precedence of leaving causes a considerable loss of time in a lift working at high pressure. This case came under my own notice. A well-known citizen and hie wife entered my lift. Did he remove his hat? No. But higher up we picked up a stranger. Young? Well, yes. Then off came the husband's hat So 'much for lift etiquette. LIFTMAN. MOUNT ROSKILL AFFAIRS. In spite of a definite promise given some time ago by the chairman of the board, that the rate for the western drainage area would not be increased, the latest rate notices show it to be still going up. In the face of a bank, overdraft and rate* badly in arrears because - of the number of unemployed and relief workers in tho district, the board uses a> lavish hand in increasing salaries to certain members of the staff. 'There is a growing feeling of dissatisfaction with the board's administration, and it is high time a meeting was called that ratepayers might voice their protest. GRUDGING RATEPAYER. THE RELIGION OF COMMUNISM. Tho popular idea that Soviet Russia is irreligious is contested by Walter P. Duranty, correspondent of the "New York Times," who in 'his book, "Eussia Reported, 1021-1933," just published after twelve years' residence in Russia, says: "The key to Russia's complicated religious problems is that Communism is itself a religion of an extremely fanatic and militant character. Communism is not atheism as the word is generally understood. In it human labour takes the place of God, and tho millennium on earth, when peace shall reign and plenty and happiness and none oppress liis neighbour or profit by his neighbour's weakness, is the ideal goal instead of a. heaven after death." Many will condemn this as rank materialism. But what is the dominating trend of our so-called Christian civilisation? Was it Socialism, Bolshevism or Communism that jockeyed the nations into the last war and put millions of honest citizens and their families into bread queues, soup kitchens and on the "dole"? Are politics as wo .pursue them with tariffs, quotas and restrictions on production and. exchange based on anything but materialistic concepts and considerations? Are our methods of high finance dominated by anything but a sordid greed of gain ? Why criticise the materialism

of Russia when it govern.? so largely in o ,lr own political, economic and financial spheres, and in no small degree in that of religion itself? a. c. snnroNS.