“Lowering” Of Moral Standards Criticised

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28552, 3 April 1958, Page 7

“Lowering” Of Moral Standards Criticised

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, April 2.

••Some so-called juvenile de l Jinquents are only rebellious exhibitionists seeking notoriety. Others are doing openly and flamboyantly things which older and supposedly respectable people are doing less openly and in a bigger w zy,” said Dr. O. C. Mazengarb Q.C., in Wellington today. He wa s addressing members of the Wellington branch of the Honorary Justices of the Peace Association.

There was a tendency to put far too much emphasis on the word -juvenile.” said Dr. Mazengarb. But dishonesty, impurity, and lawlessness did not always arise from a lack of home training. These were not vices peculiar to young people. There had been a surfeit of information and advice from psychologists on the subject of juvenile delinquency, said Dr. Mazengarb, and he would reserve judgment on any corrective meas ures suggested until after the legislature chose to introduce imprisonment for men who habitually and wilfully defrauded the Inland Revenue Department. “P.A.Y.E." is an admirable scheme to prevent wage-earners who have two jobs from evading taxation,” said Dr. Mazengarb. ■ Why not J.A.I.L. to compel payment of tax by those wrongdoers who are engaged in business on their own account?” Social Security Frauds

He said that under section 136 of the Social Security Act persons of small means are liable to 12 months’ imprisonment for

making false statements to obtain benefits. Persons more happily circumstanced had only to suffer a fine and risk of publication of their names in the Gazette when they made fraudulent statements under the income tax law.

It was almost certain there would be a substantial increase in revenue if more salutary means were adopted to put an end to these special taxation frauds. Dr. Mazengarb said that, whatever the effect on the revenue, society had reached a stage at which the effect of these things on the rising generation had to be considered. In the teenage crisis, he said, public morality was more important than public finance “Potent Cause” Inflationary conditions under which people were compelled to live were described by Dr. Mazengarb as a potent cause of adult and juvenile delinquency. A few years ago, inflation was regarded as highly undesirable, he said. Today bankers and Treasury officials were arguing that inflation “is inevitable, and that all they can do is hold it back by using a credit squeeze.”

Electors had showm they wanted a welfare State with everincreasing benefits, so the Government had to allow bankers to create extra money needed. The additional profit made by industrialists as a result of the spending of this money was taxed, said Dr. Mazengarb. “The new economic theory, however, is that the State should then compensate the industrialists by looking with a kindly eye on their expense accounts, and by allowing them to charge as business expenditure items which are normally ordinary living expenses.”

He said a good illustration was the use to which motor-cars were put. It was common for a firm to offer a car as an inducement to employment. It was very difficult to decide what part of the expense of running that car could farily be treated as a deduction from gross income. In many cases it ultimately depended on the conscience of the individual.

But when wage and salary earners saw business cars being run to and from work by em-

ployees. they naturally felt their own travelling expenses to work ?“ ou *d a ' so be allowed as deductible items in their gross earnings. The High Court in Australia had recently stated that wage and salary earners were not entitled to such deductions.

Staff Welfare Cottages Another “questionable item” dealt with the provision of staff welfare cottages at lake or seaside resorts, said Dr. Mazengarb. “The cynic shrewdly suspects that the staff gets the benefit of these cottages in the off season or when painting and gardening have to be done,” he said. Dr. Mazengarb added: “There has been a lot of glib talk in statutes and in appeals for public loans about maintaining a high degree of production, trade, and employment, and of developing the resources of the country. “But if the material prosperity which undertakings such as Roxburgh. Kawerau, and Wairakei are designed to give can be achieved only by a lowering of our moral defences it is being dearly bought. Restoring of Standards

“The greatness of this Dominion will not be enhanced by further inflation or by getting money from the World Bank at high interest rates to pay for these grandiose schemes. Its greatness will be achieved by a restoration of these moral standards. the lowering of which is the primary and exciting cause of the juvenile excesses which have lately been the subject of possibly too much discussion. “What this country needs, and needs urgently, is moral leadership in high places and in the business community. We cannot expect from the young a higher standard of conduct than we are prepared to set for ourselves."