dominion topics

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 234, 1 July 1939, Page 1 (Supplement)

dominion topics

Wartime Food Reserves. Suggestions are being made in Londone that, in order to help New Zealand, the British Government should buy stocks of Dominion foodstuffs for emergency purposes. If these have been prompted by Mr. Nash, he is to be congratulated on st businesslike move cominn within his province as Minister of Marketing. The British meat quota is creating a mutton surplus in New Zealand that might, for instance, be disposed of in this way to the satisfaction of New Zealand and the better provisioning of Britain. Authority for such operations has already been given to the British Board of Tradelunder the Essential Commodities Reserves Act. The board many finance traders to enable them to . augment storage and stocks, or may itself ereet or acquire stores and stock them. Up to the present this authority has been used to validate the acquisition of reserve supplies of wheat, whale oil and sugar, quantities of which , were’ purchased' over a yeiir ago. Such commodities can be easily stored, for long periods cheaply, but with' 'perishable food-, stuffs more difficult problems would have to be solved.—“ New Zealand Herald.” Taxes Everywhere.

It is not'the income’tax, but the indirect taxes that are reflected in the cost of living, which constitute the family man’s burden. He pays the one only bnce a.year, and grumbles about it, but the others he is paying every day. The kind of change in income taxation which would tbe most welcome and beneficial is one not only correcting the anomalies in . the existing system, but reducing the total amount of money diverted from private pockets to the Government’s, and in present circumstances this is the kind of change which, it is quite hopeless to expect.' But Whin the existing sytem there are anomalies calling aloud for removal. One of the worst is the taxation of individual incomes, if derived from companies, at a high' rate, though the income itself may be small. Under this system, it has been pointed, out, one taxpayer with an income of £4OO may pay £l5O through the com-' panies in which he has invested; while another with an equal income from other : sources may pay only £3/8/-. Indefensible anomalies such as this can be corrected easily, provided the Government’s desire, to do justice is greater than its need of. revenue.—“ Auckland Star.”' ' ■' A Banker’s Review.

Probably only once before in the history of the country have the people been so desperately in need of a_ dispassionate and analytical survey of the financial position, and for tais reason the address of the chairman to the annual meeting of the Bank of New. Zealand had been awaited with more than utaal interest.* -Again, however, it is necessary to direct attention to the deplorable barrenness of the report so far as anything in the nature of constructive criticism is concerned. All too clearly the fact -emerges that the Bank of New Zealand, the Dominion s largest banking institution, has.become merely a political puppet whose’ chief concern is to echo the wishes .of, the Government and to curry its favour Just what this surrender ■to . political control inay entail will probably be realised ,in the not-far-distant future In the meantime; the shareholders of the bank have to be. content with an address by their’ chairman ninety per cent, of which consisted of a drab reiteration of facts and figures which have previously been published and many of which are already out of date. The bank’s shareholders, its depositors, and the public generally are entitled to something better, to some explanation of the crisis confronting the Dominion, and some expert and constructive suggestions for overcoming it. —“Poverty Bay Herald.” ■ ‘ . - “Insulation” Blown Out..

: If any. belief existed among the Ministers of this Dominion that New Zealand could play a lone hand, it must have vanished in' the light of administrative experience. Mr- Nash makes this clear in a letter to the “Manchester Guardian,” in which he declared that New Zealand is not.in the least enamoured of self-sufficiency, but wants to extend trade and secure it against disastrous boom and slump fluctuations. So far as this country is concerned, the whole thing in a nutshell is that our Government, in pursuit of an ideal, has gone .too far in the matter of-State ex- | penditure, and has landed the country In financial difficulties. In the circumstances, import control became necessary. This created embarrassing developments, one of which, as the ‘Manchester Guardian” points out, is that New Zealand,; like the. ,totalitarian States, is meeting with retaliation from the buyers of its produce. This is a very serious matter, for, as Sir Harry Batterbee said. Great Britain last year took £49,000.000 worth of Dominion exports totalling £58,000,000. In the same rear New Zealand drew only £26,500.000 worth of her imports, amounting to £55,000,000, from the United Kingdom. These figures do not reveal the complete position, but they are sufficient.to show how great is the advantage possessed by New Zealand.—Dunedin . “Evening Star.” j ,• ’ Unemployment Relief Funds. 1

’The problem of finding the wages of “relief’’ workers who formerly depended upon the Employment Promotion Fund has apparently been solved by causing the Social Security Fund to bear at least some of the burden. It niay be possible to justify the payment of such subsidies as a. part of the general conception of “social security, but the question arises’how great a strain will be placed on the fund to meet the needs of relief workers. It isaiot long since over £6,000.000 a year, the proceeds of the taxation of eightpence in the pound on wages and other income, was absorbed in the “promotion of employment.” If the Social Security Fund is expected to fill the gap left by the abolition of the Employment Promotion Fund, it would seem that, unless a substantial improvement in employment has taken place In recent months, all the other aspects of social security must be financed .on little more than the extra taxation of fourpenee in the pound. There is perhaps no other source of funds for unemployment relief wages subsidies, excepting the Public Works Department, but apparently that aspect of social security, beyond the payment of the involuntary unemployment benefit, had escaped public notice. —“Waikato Times.”

Auckland’s Oysters. A local delicacy which has become all too rare in recent years, the Aukland rock oyster, is once more available for a limited season. . . . The public is still suffering from the unimaginative official policy of the past when the Marine Department, with a monopoly ot rockoyster supplies, obstinately refused to take reasonable steps for the pi otection and cultivation of the beds. Even now not enough is being done in this direction, and the increased quantity to be marketed this season is more the result of favourable climatic conditions than of official development of a potentially valuable industry. The Sea Fisheries Investigation Committee in 1937 recommended private cultivation of rock oysters on a limited scale, and there is every reason why the Gov- ' ernment should follow this advice, lhe success of "oyster farming” in New South Wales ha s been most marked, and private enterprise in the Auckland area should be given a similar opportunity—“ New Zealand Herald.”

Young Offenders. Of the 1991 prisoners in the year 1937-38 164 were under the age of 21, and 254 were less than 25 years old. In other words slightly over ■ one-fifth of the offenders punished by imprisonment were young people. Of the charges which led to their conviction, offences against property constituted by far the majority, the figures being 236 against . 152 for all other offences ineluding such minor delinquencies as drunkenness and vagrancy. The annual report of the Prisons Department for last year is not yet available, but the official figures quoted do not appear to indicate any . sudden and alarming increase of crime among young people or, indeed, throughout the general’ population of the Dominion. But although there is no need to fear an unusual amount of lawlessness among j ouug men, the fact that they' constitute onefifth of the prison population is sulhcient to warrant investigation, by edu* cation and other authorities. It is obvious that crimes against property are more likely to appeal to the young, fxot only for physical reasons, but because the excitement as well as the loot obtainable has au attraction which passes as men grow older, lhe Clnet Justice did good service in drawing attention to the circumstances as they appealed to him.- —“Taranaki Herald. The Imports Restrictions. The import restrictions have hit some United Kingdom exporters hard just as they have hit some New Zealand importers hard. We do not know the total amount by which the imports of consumers’ goods from the United Kingdom have beep reduced, but it is pertinent to remark, that, according to Mr. Nash, “even the goods bn order for delivery during the current year, for-i defence, will entail a charge on sterling funds of £2,000.000.” This means that, in so far.as the amount of £2,000,QU0 is concerned,’ ’imports have not been reduced; their character has been changed. There has been a substitution' of guns for goods of the kind sold in shops. The manufacturers of the latter kind lose,z but the armament manufacturers gain. There may be no legitimate cause for complaint by the British (Government ou this score. But, in so far as : the shortage of sterling funds is due to heavy purchases of equipment for manufacturing goods which will permanently displace United Kingdom goods—what can Mr. Nash expect the British Government to say if he is obliged to go to it for help? As a Government dependent on popular support, it is more likely to give ear to the protests of its own manufacturers and their workerg than to his assurances.— "Auckland Star.” The Swiss Migrants.

Taranaki will give a warm welcome to the party of 19 young Swiss who have left their homes to find new ones in this province. Swiss influence in Taranaki is not negligible, and farmers of that nationality have a reputation for industry and capability that cannot be bettered. In fact, the Taranaki dairy industry .can be said to owe no small part of its success to Swiss farmers, who have in addition proved firstclass citizens with a deep pride in the land and their work, and a warm loyalty to the country of their adoption. The present party may be only the first of several to come to Taranaki. Certain it is that there is no lack of employment on dairy farms and the province could absorb some hundreds of this fine type of young men, who will find'' conditions here so much more genial and full of potentialities' than in their mountainous and closely-settled homeland. Thanks to their hardworking and thorough methods, their success and prosperity wilLb,e assured, and if their assimilation should result eventually in Closer land settlement, that should be a development adding greatly to the production and prosperity of the province— Taranaki Herald.” Mr. Nash’s Difficulties.

The City Editor of “The Times has reached the conclusion, which unfortunately there is no reason to doubt, that the New Zealand Government has at present no chance of raising a loan on the Loudon market. He has also reached the further conclusion, which there is even less reason to doubt, that in the current year New Zealand will not have sufficient sterling to meet her debt service requirements and pay for imports, even allowing for the effects of import and exchange control. Mr. Nash has, therefore, a choice between trying to borrow in some other country (America, for instance), and seeking assistance from the British Government under the terms of the Export Guarantee Act. The second way out of the difficulty seems the more desirable, and will probably be adopted. Under the original act, the Export Credits Guarantee Department was empowered, with the consent of the Treasury and of an advisory committee of businessmen, to give guarantees in respect of exports involving more risk''than the ordinary trader was prepared to take. . .' . In 1938. however, the need for countering the German politico-econo-mic drive in the Balkans led the British Government to extend the functions of the department so as to enable it to extend credits on grounds of political expediency. It can be assumed that a request by the New Zealand Government for a grant of credits to enable it •to overcome the difficulty created by its lack of sterling funds'will be dealt with as a political rather than a purely commercial matter.—“ The Press,” Chnst- , church.