The Coming Session.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20621, 10 August 1932, Page 10

The Coming Session.

A special message'to The Pkess from Wellington yesterday reported an encouraging statement by the Prime Minister, who expressed hie greatly strengthened confidence. In particular, he said that he expected the Government to get through the coming session of Parliament without imposing fresh taxation. Since the reserves invested in discharged soldiers' mortgages were hypothecated for this express purpose, the expectation is not a new one; but taxpayers will not be sorry to have it confirmed. When the Minister for Finance announced this measure, the outlook was more uncertain and less hopeful than now, and whether the proposed hypothecation would suffice to hold the deficit to the settled figure and to save the taxpayer from fresh exactions was questionable. Since then, a quarter's revenue and expenditure figures have become available as a check-upon the Government's estimates and in spite of an unlooked-for exchange charge indicate that the Budget will be safely drawn ,on the lines sketched a few months ago. In addition, the Ottawa Conference promises to yield fruits of advantage, while the international situation has improved, definitely, and to a degree at which further improvement is more likely than relapse or a long standstill. Cautiously framed as it is, Mr Forbes's statement raises no hopes but what are justified by these facts. It is, in fact, so cautious as to say only, with reference to the special unemployment taxation, that "any increase will be " avoided, if possible." But taxpayers will urge the Government to make it possible by whatever effort may be necessary. The incidence of income, land, and other taxation on the one hand and unemployment taxation on the other may differ; but the long-run effect of increases in either direction is one and the same—the burdening and exhaustion of industry. To rejoice because ordinary taxation is not raised will be to rejoice over very little, if special taxation is raised; and it is to be hoped that the quite unreal and dangerous distinction between taxation in the Budget and taxation apart from it, to which we have often drawn attention, will not delude either the Government or the people.