The Press Friday, September 19, 1930. The Reform Party.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20037, 19 September 1930, Page 10

The Press Friday, September 19, 1930. The Reform Party.

At the opening of the Reform Party's annual conference in Wellington, Mr Coates announced a number of general points of policy, not of equal importance and of course not intended to be. Several are closely related, and it would have been useful if a general principle had been stated, to bind and clinch them. It would not be difficult to find or enunciate it. Indeed, no Party that has any difficulty in declaring it, or flinches away from the task of carrying it out, can be of much use to the country now or for many years to come. To strengthen primary production is the larger part of wisdom, sinco with primary production the whole Dominion flourishes or fails. There are other ends to serve and interests to cultivate, certainly; but the practical rule, which helps us to find the solution of nearly every practical problem, is that we can make real and permanent social progress only if we make and keep primary production vigorous, while if we pay for seeming advantages by enfeebling primary production we cheat and rob and may ruin ourselves. A policy framed in accordance with this principle is not narrowed by it, but stabilised and rationalised. Among Mr Coates's sixteen points, for example, few fall outside its scope. Strict economy of Government expenditure is t)ie first necessity, if the drain of taxation is to be checked. To eliminate waste and overlap and to ally Capital and Labour in pursuing the best distribution of social benefit through industry means the reduction of a cost burden too heavy for production to bear; and "the encouragement of scientific management of secondary industries" is separately mentioned, and tariffs are ignored, probably to indicate that tariff protection, the cost of which falls on primary production, must be fully deserved by efficiency before it can even be considered. How much ia meant by the derating of farm lands is uncertain. It may signify a general or selective measure, and complete or partial relief; or it may be proposed only to investigate thoroughly the uneven and often oppressive incidence of rates on farm lands. But the object is plain and justifies at the very least a full study of all means of gaining it. In its broadest form it is stated in the preceding clause, which asserts "the "general principle of taxation accord"ing to ability to pay." It ia monstrous that taxation should operate on any other principle, as it does, and to the special detriment of primary producers. If the Reform Party sets ittelf boldly to redress the whole system of taxation, which now works equitably only by accident, it will do a sane and necessary thing, which,.to be blunt, no other Party can be trusted to do. The Labour Party's principles are wrong. The Government has none, or none but what are as flexible as a monkey's tail and used with similar grace and dignity. This is of course the Reform Party's strength, which it should make the most of: it can be trusted to stjck to the line it lays down. If it declares that line now, firmly, without apology or concession-, as it can and should, it will recover all the support it loßt two years ago, and gain frejihf for the Dominion has found that tiie situation it brought about two years ago is intolerable in itself, and intolerably costly and injurious.