The Press Friday, September 27, 1929. Unjust Taxation.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19735, 27 September 1929, Page 10

The Press Friday, September 27, 1929. Unjust Taxation.

The Hon. Mr Downie Stewart's -j.eeek on tho (Jovurnment's taxation Bill was on its own merits a soutul and cogent speech; by contrast with the l iime Minister's effort in self-defence, to which we referred yesterday, it was most notably so. Whether the House, as Mr Stewart believes, will "pause •'long before il passes this legislation ■< in its present form," or whether the United voters will be whipped into pushing it through by their own Leader and his Labour masters, members have now had a just case so strongly and clearly presented to theui that they can reject it and vote for the Bill, as it stands, only if they will" not hear reason or are too dull to recognise it. We may draw attention to two or three leading points in the speech of the ex-Minister for Finance. First, he showed that a proper regard for New Zealand's destiny and its position as a primary producing country forbids any policy of taxation so directed as to cut up estates indiscriminately. There are large holdings the integrity of which ought to be preserved, because they can be efficiently productive only as large holdings; yet they are assailed and endangered by the (ioverninent. s proposals. Again, of the large holdings more or loss suitable for subdivision, if some might with advantage be cut up, others certainly should be left as they are; but the Bill aims the same disruptive blows at all alike. Clearly, what is wanted is a preliminary quantitative and qualitative land survey before any penal taxing machinery can be made scientific and set working. Even then, of course, taxation would be a much less scientific and direct means to the desired end than could be devised, or improved out of existing means. But, as The Press has said, and the Hon. Mr Coates said the other day, and Mr Stewart says now, this survey must be the foundation of any policy of division and settlement; but the Government would rather loose off blindly with a blunderbuss than be at the pains of taking good aim with a better weapon. For a second point Mr Stewart's wise and fair remarks on the injustice of the proposals may be chosen. We commented yesterday on the absurdity of Sir Joseph Ward's explanation of his hardship clause — how an appellant denied relief by the Minister (though recommended for it by the Commission) can try his luck with a petition to Parliament. Mr Stewart observes that the Government fails to realise the difference between a hardship and an injustice. A petition to Parliament, properly arises from an unforeseen injustice; but here is the Government foreseeing and preparing for the consequences of injustice, and turning Parliament into a * final Court of Appeal against its own acts. The plea will not hold that these foreseen and unjust consequences will be few; that those struck will be a minority. As Mr Stewart says: ''lf " the principle is wrong, it does not " matter whether those affected num- '• ber 2000, 10,000, or ten." Indeed, the principle is grossly wrong' because it aims at "2000, 10, COO, or ten'' — because it is penally aimed at a class. This takes us to the third point, the intolerable extreme to which victimisation is carried by the special tax. The Prime Minister was careful to avoid reference to its maximal severity, which is such that properties will be made worthless to their owners, who, rather than carry them on under an annual impost absorbing the whole annual value, will surrender them. If the Government cries triumphantly that this is exactly what it wants, the answer is that what it wants is proved to be ruinous folly under the first point above, and, again, by its involving a wholesale and uneheckable depreciation of land values in every class, from end to end of New Zealand, and consequently a tremendous setback to production and development. Nobody has

envied Mr W. J. Poison his ordeal on Wednesday; but it is precisely because what he said was said in deep distress that everybody this time will accept him as a good witness; and he bore out Mr Stewart on this ix& ou every really important count. The working farmer, he said, would bo burdened; the methods of the Government "a/mounted to confiscation"; and land values would undoubtedly fall. But if farmers, great and small, havo reason to thank the awkwardly placed president of their Union for these words of his while on the rack, they have ten times as much reason to thank the Hon. Mr Stewart.