The Press. FRIDAY February 11, 1916. The Ethics of War Taxation.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15511, 11 February 1916, Page 6

The Press. FRIDAY February 11, 1916. The Ethics of War Taxation.

Any doubt that we may have had a3 to the usefulness of continuing our little controversy with our morning •ontemporary respecting war taxation was dispelled by an uncommonly frank admission made by our critic yesterday. It made a further attempt to deny that there was any significance in tho fact that the revenue from land and income tax has this year increased by a percentage enormously greater than tho percentage representing the increase in the Customs re- * venue. In its argument it placed tho figures elating to income tax revenue in a hopelessly misleading light, and it carefully ignored the huge increase in the revenuo from land taxation. Why it should have gone to so much trouble to befudJle its readers we do not know, for it ii Jnklv confesses that after all it is net concerned with the ethics of taxation "We have neither time nor " space," it says, "to argue about the " ethics of taxation every day with " our contemporary," but ''it may be "said briefly," it adds, that there ought to be a still further heavy increase of land taxation and no interference with the Customs tariff. And of course it will not listen to- any proposal to broaden tho basis of the income-tax. Tt is because a great many people hold that view, and are being encouraged to demand that they shall bo enabled to shirk payment of their share of the expenses of the war, that we have been pointing out that both theoretically and in practice our present system of taxation is monstrously unfair, and worse. For it is worse than un- _ fair that a majority of the nation should be told, in effect, that the war is not their affair, but -a luxury for

whicli only the most easily penalised minority should y;jy. That is a theory which we hold makes for a very unwholesome national conscience. In Great Britain, all parties are agreed that the only system of taxation that can be considered, either on grounds of policy or expediency, as Mr Lloyd George put it. is one which makes the duty of contributing to the cost of :he wa r as nearly universal as possible. Our contemporary has not once dared to face the principle involved, and has made no attempt to show that Mr Lloyd George was wrong in laying down, and tlie British Government wrong in translating into law. and the British nation, all British

men and parties, wrong in accepting aa ihe irreducible minimum of de-

cency, honour, and wisdom, the principle embodied in the following statement :

"On the grounds of policy, as well as of justice, it is inexpedient that a great war, involving national honour and existence, should be financed by contributions levied upon one section —upon a minority of the population. It is peculiarly a caee for every class. every condition, every grade, to bear their share of the burden. I shall therefore submit proposals which will bring in, so far as we are able, all classes of the community."

Until that principle is adopted in this country we shall continue to urge and uphold it, for we. at any rate, are not going to have it said that out of some low consideration we took tho part of any financial shirker.

What is the position laere? The vast majority of-' the public are contributing next to nothing to tho national revenue in normal times, and tliey have been carefully relieved of the duty ofcontributing a single penny in war taxation. There is no tax on incomcs of les., than £300 a year, and the Customs tariff lias been so framed that it either leaves untaxed or else taxes very lightly tho necessaries or seiuwieresaarie.j of life. J:i flroat Britain the man earning £1 a week lias been made to pay at the rate of over £9 per year in income tax; Ho lias to pay enormous duties on j-ome of the necessaries of life. The Customs revenue per head in Britain is now as high as in. New Zealand, and an enormously greater proportion of it comes from the necessaries of life- than in this couutry. In Great Britain there has beou none of tho shabby pleading for tho right to shirk that we arc being treated to in New Zealand. In Great Britain the average wages a,re less than here; the cost of living has risen by a far greater percentage; tho man with a small income pays moro through, the Customs than his New Zealand fellow. But despite all -that we have the whole English nation allproving of such an income tax as wc have mentioned, and in Britain anyone who s"oko or wrote as our critics are speaking and writing here would, be universally scorned or ridiculed. Bad enough as the penalising of a minority to defray |lio nation's general expenses unquestionably is in normal 'times, it is ten times worse in these days. For to the normal injustice of it is added the unwholesome and dan--1 gerous quality of a theory which is based on the alleged right of the majority to shirk paying its share of tho cost of defending, the honour, liborb.-, and life of us all.