HIGHER TAXATION

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21906, 6 October 1936, Page 15

HIGHER TAXATION

' TO THE EDITOR Of THE PSE33. Sir, —Mr Bray has avoided the issue. It is all very well writing about the abundance of wealth and the redundancy of creating more. That is not facing realities. Mr Bray may mean that there is a potential abundance of wealth. That is not the same thing as a sufficiency of wealth in the hands of all ,those people existing on the bread line. Our objective is the delivery of the goods. They must first be produced. Now, my point is that, if private capital ’efuses to; venture into production because profits cannot be envisaged, then the State must act in such a manner, as to ensure that the production and distribution of wealth goes on. In other words, the immobilisation of capital resources cannot be permitted. Therefore, the State 'takes the money or credit from those that have It and proceeds to place it in the hands of hose who will spend it, mainly on consumable goods, and thus give a push, as it were, to the resumption of production by urivate capital. It is not a question of armaments being consumable wealth at all; but it is a fact that the wages paid to those who produce the armaments will be spent largely in the consumption of goods and services. Thus the demand fir these will lead to their production. The same result obtains With money spent by the State in social services, pensions, etc, That is the point which has escaped Mf Bray when ne ridicules excerpts from my previous letter. One way of delivering the goods we are capable of producing is to take the money, by way or taxation, from people who will not spend it in the. consumption of goods and services. It is the justification of properly applied taxation as a means of achieving a better distribution of wealth and, with it. the delivery of the gooods that I am concerned with. « Mr Bray has Said nothing to show that this technique would not achieve the maximum desired. Instead, he wants me to accept the mentality of a barnacle just because I, with millions of others, await the exposition of a technique for debt-free money and, meanwhile, prefer “the devil we know,” etc,—Yours, etc., l D October S, 1936.