"STATE SLAVES"

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 124, 28 May 1930, Page 19

"STATE SLAVES"

BRITAIN'S TREND

ECONOMY NEEDED

An appeal for economy, national.and personal, has been made by Mr. Walter Buneiman, M.P., at a luncheon at Cannon Street Hotel, arranged.by the Liberal Council and the City of London Liberal Association, says the "Daily Telegraph." "The sooner we make up our minds," said Mr. Kunciman, "that retrenchment is as essential as reform, the better it will be for 'this country. But you cannot expect that the Government will cease to be oxtravagant while it sees large classes of the community ostentatiously spdnding their wealth. ~ "What is the good of bur arguing in Parliament -that- we must conserve our capital resources for the. good of industry when M.P.'s see capital resources being squandered by those who have more money than sense? "Prance, which is reducing her taxation, has the most frugal people in Europe. They will live on the odour of a spoonful of garlic when our people insist on a chump chop. Tho truth is that we are all spending money extravagantly. It is not without significance that, on tho very day Mr. Suowden launched his Budgot Sir Thomas Lipton launched Shamrock V. LEVY ON CAPITAL. ■ "We. are not exactly State slaves," continued Mr. Ijunciman, "but we are getting on that way." He calculated that an average consumer earning £2 a week worked nearly six weeks in the year to pay direct and indirect taxes. A man with an income of & 1000 a year from dividonds contributed 7$ weeks' income to the State; one with £5000 a year contributed 13J weeks income; one with £10,000 contributed 18i weeks' income; and one with £100,000 contributed 27$ weeks' income. In income tax, super tax, and death duties a man with £5000 a year would now pay i)s in tlio £, one with £50,000 a year 18s IOJd in the. &, and one with £100,000 a year 21s in the pound. "My heart docs not bleed for the man with £100,000 a year," said Mr. Eunciman, "but it is not to the good of this country that any taxpayer should be taxed more than his income. When you do take capital assets from the taspa3 rer you should earmark that for the reduction of the State's capital debt." It was absurd to say that income, tax, super tax, and death duties did not enter into the cost of production. The report of tho Colwyii Committee was not the Holy Scriptures. Tho change from Mr. Churchill's picturesque and glittering finance to tho Labour Party's humdrum Budget wns a 'merciful relief. Mr Churchill had exhausted . every expedient for making ends meet, and now his successor had to resort to straightforward taxation, which ought never to have been departed from.