COMPETITION FOR VOTES

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 95, 23 April 1931, Page 10

COMPETITION FOR VOTES

BURDEN OF TAXATION

Speaking at the annual general meeting of the Mercantile Investment and General Trust Co., Ltd., the chairman, Sir Miles Mattinson, KG, dealt with tho present burden of taxation on industry. According to a report published in tho English journal, "Taxation,'^ he said: —

"Is there any romedy—any remedy particularly for this profligate expenditure, with, its crushing taxation, bringing in its train further trade paralysis and bitter hardships to multitudes of all sorts and conditions of men and women1? Is there ti remedy? As the troublo is largely political, the remedy must be largely political. This brings politics into business. I dotest politics in business, but politics have' already been brought into business, and politics are killing business. (Hear, hear.) Your company as a company can do nothing to influence the course of public affairs, but if I and you and the rest of us, in our capacity of citizens, weTe to do our duty with zeal and courage, we could do much. There aro thousands of investors in this company; thero are hundreds of thousands of investors in the great group of investment trusts; and if you take the whole range of investments in this country the persons interested go into millions. They includo the most influential, intelligent, and thrifty elements in the population, and if, for the time being sinking all ordinary party differences in the face of a danger common to all, and which may overwhelm all, they were to combine in one determined, insistent' demand thab in the administration of their affairs, waste should cease and economy should reign, then, there would bo the dawn, of a new hope for them <md a new hope for . the country. (Cheers.)

"Gentlemen^ the root of the mischiof is not far to seek. The root of the mischief ia the extravagant promises of politicians, in their' reckless competition for votes, unscrupulously outbidding one another, not at thoir own expense but at your expense. This is a disease of the body politic which has been growing for years. I do not say it began with the famous slogan, •Ninepence for fourpence,' but that was a milestone on the road to ruin, and the end of the road so far is seen in the shocking chaos in the national finance and in the widespread demoralisation of the dole in a nation Which deserves a better fate.

"Gentlemen, there is only • one remedy. The only remedy is to make politicians of all parties—l speak In no party senso, and I include all parties in 'the question proposed—understand that it will no longer pay them to promise everything for nothing at' other poople's expense. (Hear, hear.) They will only understand when they know that the 'other people' are no longer content to be 'as sheep which before the shearers are dumb,' but have aroused themselves to protect their own Interests and tho interests of their country, and thoy will only heed when they are' everywhere faced with a demand from you and others for a definite, unqualified pledge to reject all new financial commitments, to revise all existing commitments so far as possible, and so far as the public faith will allow, and to enforce a rigorous economy in the, administration of the commitments which remain." (Hear, hear.) .