LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 73, 27 March 1931, Page 5

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

ADDRESS-IN-REPLY DEBATE

The Address-in-Eeply debate was continued in the Legislative Council yesterday afternoon. Continuing his speech .after "The Post" went to press yesterday afternoon, the Hon. W. M'lntyre advocated a duty on fuel oil, a competitor of coal, and deprecated the importation of Newcastle coal free of duty by the Government. He urged a flat rate of 5s per ton on coal imports. ' He attacked the principle of differentiation in the pay of married and single men, ai}d advocated an income tax on single men, and, if necessary, on single women, in cases where they were "earning more money than was good for them, rather than the payment of 12s 6d to married men and 9s a day to single men. The Hon. W. Snodgrass said tliat with care and economy during the year, the country would not have been in the position it was. During 1930 the conditions in the Dominion were plainly not so bright, and some of the funds should have been saved, but tho rates of pay for unemployment, for practically tinder-rate workers, were too high. He" knew of the case of a man who sold *is business, drove to unemployment Work every day in his car as long as tt suited him, and then bought anfther business. That was the sort of thing that happened with the high gates' of unemployment pay. He joined in congratulating Sir-J''ran-«ts Bell on the opinions he had expressed, which seemed to have already *ad effect 'if ic^fcrd to conditions Amongst the >6wer ifficera of the Deiartments. He hoprc'l tho provisions rould be useful. Sir Francis Bell: "You think they ■will be useful?" .Mr. Snodgrass: "I hope they will be. useful." *He instanced the case of a latter carrier with £240 salary, £216 w.ith a 10 per cent, cut, who had a number of children, and was faced with 203 a week in repayment of a State advance. Preferential treatment to the extent given New Zealand wheat farmers was attacked by the Hon. L. M. Isitt, who said that the price of wheat in Australia would soon be lower than it was now. He taxed the country with having dug the pit in which it stood by extravagance in individual pleasure and in State a.nd municipal spending on unnecessary buildings and works. Solfcontrol and self-denial were needed by the individual. He believed that the best thing that could happen to tho working classes of Now Zealand would be a reduced wage. Many concerns, scores and scores, unless overhead expenses were reduced, were bound to go out. Was It fair that the men who had a job for life, and an annuity towards the end of it, should not receive equal treatment with men outside the Civil Service? He believed the cut was'the lesser of two evils. The Council adjourned nntil to-day.