The Bay of Plenty Times SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 1949. What DID We Expect?

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 15059, 20 August 1949, Page 2

The Bay of Plenty Times SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 1949. What DID We Expect?

Every three years since 1935, the people of New Zealand have looked forward, with the keen anticipation of a family at. 'Christmas time, to see what a benevolent Uncle Waller has in store for I hem by way of a budget box. This year they were almost unanimously disappointed. Uncle Nash has more pressing' claims on his pocket. On minds unused to astronomical figures, national finance is apt to exercise a mesmeric effect. The average earner of income is ordered to pav out and he pays. Some wage-earners by no lm-an.s all -of course are blessed with certain ben.-his under the present Government's ambitious legislation, (iroaning under an ever-growing burden of taxation a trifle of eight •millions has just been added to it the harassed taxpayer stretches out his hand for whatever our benevolent Minister of Finance chooses to place in it. In effect, although he is- too weighed down to realise the fact fully, what he is receiving is actually his own money (or rather some of it) less what it costs to collect it from him and pay it out again. The process is not unlike that which enables racegoers to have an enjoyable, if somewhat expensive week-end outing. Like the laxpayer, they pass their money through the machine, usually saying goodbye to it at the same time. The more fortunate ones may collect, but never the full pound which was passed through the window. Similarly, each pound passing through (he taxation . machine emerges slightly the worse for wear, and worth appreciably less than when it was paid in. How otherwise could the new army ol civil servants, which the ponderous machinery of goverumenl has created under Socialism, and which the present Government is determined not to reduce, be led, housed, clothed and otherwise maintained; Mr Nash has kindly worked out for us what happens to each one of our hard-earned pounds which, like auriferous cement, we pump weekly, half-yearly or annually into the leaking hull of the Socialist Ship of State in order to keep it afloat. By some miracle the Minister has expanded the modest one and sixpence deducted from our wages every week for social security into seven and fourpence. Thus more than a third of every pound goes in maintaining the top-heavy social superstructure which must capsize the vessel if she meets an economic storm. A sixth goes to maintain a civil service, the very weight of which threatens to reduce the ship's freeboard to dangerous limits. A similar amount goes to pav interest on money borrowed for the most part in an endeavour to keep the ship on an even keel. Only a third of the amount allocated 1o interna! security two shillings to be precise is earmarked for national security, in other words, defence. Thus leaking, top-heavy and ill-equipped to meet the coming storm, the ship of Socialism plunges on towards the reefs which already are baring their teeth ahead.