THE BUTTER TAX AND THE SMALL FARMER

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3149, 30 July 1917, Page 7

THE BUTTER TAX AND THE SMALL FARMER

Sir—L thank you for publishing my last letter, and note w.ith satisfaction that tho butter-fat tax has been squelched, and no wonder, -when its incidence and injustice has been pointed out by members of intelligence and fair-minded-ness, who are conversant with its working. Nothing short of a return of tho full amount of the tax levied will, how.ever, remedy tho injustice to the most industrious members of our small community, many of whom, as I have already shown, can ill afford to pay such a. tax upon their gross earnings. I say gross earnings, but when the total expenses in the way of rent, or interest by way of rent, cattle feed, and milkers' wages are taken into consideration, not forgetting county rates to provide smooth roads for tonn motorists, the net earnings are often painfully small, and not seldom a minus quantity. In and Otago, quite 90 per cent, of the dairy farmers 'worked at a loss last year, while many sold out their milking cows at £3 a, piece and -under, and stocked up again at the beginning of this season at three times that price". Two of my neighbours, who retained their cows and bought winter feed, ended last 6eason with a loss of £S3 and .£73 respectively, allowing nothing for their own labour and the help of their wives. Both are hard-working men, blessed with good and equally hard-working wives, and it is really refreshing to anyone who disapproves of the tax to hear these women discuss its authors and advocates. All I can say is, God help them if they want their votes.

Just fancy those unfortunates, who had to sell out and buy in cows, and others .who had to trench upon their email savings to recoup last year's lo=ses, being faced with a tax of from ss. to 20s. a week to reduco tho cost of living of people earning not less than 12s. to"2os. a day, and somo well over a, thousand pounds a. year,, while the average net earnings of dairymen cannot exceed the smallest daily wage I have named, working from daylight till dark, probably 88 hours a week instead of U. Such a levy was indefensible, and nothing short of" ii tax by the idle rich upon tho most industrious men in. the community, mid I characterise as idle rich all spasmodic labourers, who can afford to idle and talk politics three or four days a week and exist upon the earnings 'of two or three daj-s. Just fancy the condition they and our Dominion would get into if farmers confined their working' time to sixteen to twenty-four hours a week, owing to their inability to earn a stated daily wage, fixed by a labour union! If this management of the affairs of farmers by the Government is what thov .call State Socialism, then I am not much impressed, and w.ou!d like to know where the war {taxes are to coma from, if this wheat purchase is a sample of the business capabilities of their managers and ; nm, etc., [ . • FAKMJ3R.