CAMPAIGN FOR ECONOMY.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20413, 7 December 1931, Page 8

CAMPAIGN FOR ECONOMY.

NATIONAL SPENDING. ACTION BY CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE. NQX-I'OLITICAL COMMISSION. (PRESS ASSOCIATION TBLB3EVM.J WELLINGTON, December 6. "Concerted action by all the 45 Chambers affiliated to tho Associated Chambers of Commerce of New Zealand is being taken in a short, determined campaign for greator national economy; and a deputation is to wait on the Government shortly to urge the appointment of a non-political Commission," said Mr C. M. Bowden, president of tho Association, on Saturday.

"The Association is prepared to use a flying squadron of members to visit the outlying Chambers to ensure that the move has the fullest co-operation, and Chambers are being urged immedi-. ately to appoint committees to consider the matter and report to the executive.'' Mr Bowden said conditions had reached such a stage that decided steps would have to be taken to secure greater national economy. The Commission proposed should have instructions to prepare urgently, for adoption by the Government, an adequate plan for the adjustment of national and local requirements to the ability of tho country to provide means. The efforts of the Government to effect economies had produced very tittle result. The reduction in the national expenditure under the Supplementary Budget had been only £200,000, or less than one per cent. National and local taxation had risen from & total of £5 14s lOd a head in 1904, to £l7 12s 2d 'a head in 1930. The National Debt had increased by £88,000,000 from 1919 to 1929, and the local body debt by £40,000,000 in the same period. More than £26,000,000 of direct and indirect taxation would be extracted frofti tho community next year, although the national productive income had dropped by about £31,000,000 since 1929.30. "If the costs that the business community have saved are only to be taken away ajrain by increased taxation, to sustain an irreducible administrative system that straddles this country like a colossus, then trade and industry must breathe their last," said Mr Bowden. "These accumulated administrative costs are now clinging to our backs with the same tenacity as that "with which the Old Man of the Sea clung to the back of Sinbad. The wells of taxable income are running dry, and the weight of present taxation cannot be eased until the administrative costs of Government are reduced."