WAR INSURANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 158, 5 July 1940, Page 9

WAR INSURANCE.

PROPERTY AND GOODS.

RETURN FOR PROTECTION. MR. HOLLANDS PROPOSAL (By Telegraph—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. Contending that the incidence of taxation was wrong, Mr. Holland (Opposition, Christchurch North), in the House of Representatives last night, suggested that the guiding principle in taxation should be that the nearer the breadline the less pressure there should be on the individual. He urged the Minister of Finance to take into account the hardship that increased taxation would impose on those with low salaries. He suggested that those under £2 a week should not pay any of the increased tax and that those above that figure should pay a graduated scale in relation to their wages. He urged also that the Minister of Finance should exempt thrifty people from the penal tax when they had reached the age at which they would retire. Too much thought had been given to militant workers, the watersiders, miners and the men on public works. Property Owners and Mortgagees.

If those on the lower salary scale were relieved the money would have to be found in some other way, and he offered a suggestion for the consideration of the Government. His suggestion was war insurance. Insurance was a collective protection of property. Owners insured their properties against fire, and merchants insured their goods during transit. War insurance would apply the same principle to all property that was being protected by the forces in the field. Men in the fighting forces were protecting everything New Zealanders had, and lie suggested that it would not be too much to ask property owners to pay Id in the £ on equities in all property. For example, a property worth '£10,000 with a mortgage of £7000 would pay insurance at the rate of 3000 pennies from the owner and 7000 pennies from the mortgagee. They would both pay a premium for the protection of their equities. The same would apply to factories and to goods. in them. He estimated that about £4,000.000 eould be raised from property and goods protected by the fighting forces for New Zealanders.

Would Only Return £2,000,000. Mr. Barclay (Government, Marsdon) interjected that the (iorernnient liad considered such taxation, an<l it would only return £2,000.000. Some would claim that the proposal was a capital levy. Mr. Holland said ;t was not a capital levy, but a premium paid for protection given. No one would suggest that fire or marine insurance were capital levies, but they were both levied on the proportion of the property insured. There could be safeguards against hardship. Mr. Holland concluded by saying that he was not putting forward a* complete plan but merely a suggestion. It was an alternative that the Government should consider so that the burden on lower incomes could be reduced.