The Press Thursday, September 26, 1929. The New Land Tax.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19734, 26 September 1929, Page 8

The Press Thursday, September 26, 1929. The New Land Tax.

In defending his Land and Income Tax Amendment Bill before the House yesterday the Prime Minister very naturally adopted the expedient of repeating all the evasions and inconsistencies and bad arguments and false charges he has used before, as if they had not been revealed as such. Very naturally he did this, because —apart from candidly admitting that the Bill was a mistake and had better be buried —there was nothing else for him to do. But, if it is excusable to find only poor arguments to support a hopeless case, it is quite inexcusable to insist, in the face of overwhelming evidence and in the face of his own recent admissions in Wellington, that the objections to tha Bill are a fake and a fraud, the result of the combined effort of a small group to "stir up antagonism," and unjust in every way that " ingeni"ous misrepresentation" can suggest. When the Prime Minister says it is' " almost ludicrous " to note " the simi- " larity between the meetings arranged " —one day in the South, next day "in the North, the next somewhere "else," he deliberately travesties facts as well known to him as to his opponents and to the public; and such methods escape being shameful only by being themselves " almost ludicrous" in their transparency. But this was not Sir Joseph Ward's only ludicrous triumph. Speaking of the extent to which he has given way, in the Bill, to protests against the proposals as outlined in the Budget, he declared that he thought members would say, " upon "reflection, that it has been desirable "to give (consideration to the special " requests made to him "! —As unconscious silliness or as cynicism, this suggestion that he has erred perhaps on the side of tenderness and that he is afraid his ruthless friends will blame him for it, is hard to beat. What this tenderness amounts to we may learn from the Prime Minister's remarks on the hardship clause. Since the object of the supertax is to obtain " additional "revenue as well as to encourage the "subdividing of holdings," it would appear, he said, that " relief would be "granted only in cases where the " exaction of the full amount of super- " tax would entail serious hardship." Other considerations, such as suitability for subdivision, previous offers to the Government or other buyers, and subdivision effected since the end of last March, are to be ignored; for, if they were not, " injustice as between "one taxpayer and another would be "unavoidable." In plain words, a man may get relief if payment in full would ruin him: injustice that will not break him he will have tq bear. Not even the Commission which is to hear appeals for relief is to have final authority, through the Commissioner or the Minister, to dispense it. An appeal that succeeds before the Commission may be rejected by the Commissioner or the Minister; and any fool who is still obstreperous in complaining can try " the remedy of a petition "to Parliament." This is the unstrained quality of mercy, indeed. The vicious and relentless nature of the Government's proposals so well appears in its concessions that it is scarcely necessary to trace it where they press hardest. But it may perhaps be pointed out that the Prime Minister's anxiety to accept tbo Commissioner's figures, setting out the number of persons who will be affected by the new taxation, is simply an anxiety to seek refuge from economic facts in the figures of an accountant. The Commissioner takes no heed whatever—perhaps it is not his duty—of the genera) effect of the taxation on farm finance, on land values, and, ultimately, on production and the nation's bread and butter. He reckons only the abstract incidence of the tax, and ignores its effect as a piece of economic policy. But it is the latter that is wicked and potentially disastrous; and its consequences,unless some last-minute relief averts the danger, will be most heavily and bitterly paid for.