MORE MONEY NEEDED

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 91, 14 October 1931, Page 4

MORE MONEY NEEDED

INCREASE IN WAGES TAX

fROM 3D TO 5.D IN THE £

Proceeding, Mr. Coates said that .without additional funds, tlie task of transferring men into productive employment could not be seriously attempted. To-day every penny available to the Unemployment Board was being used: The board's whole income, allowing for recent increases. in the unemployment relief tax, and' including the subsidy from ordinary taxation, was £2,500,000 a year,/-or less, than £50,000 % a . week. Its e.x&c'nditure' now was at the rate of £5O;i06o a week; and so long as there were 50,000 unemployed men that oxpendituro could not well be reduced. AH" members of the Unemployment

[Board were cdosoly in touch with the realities of present conditions in New Zealand. They were aware of the very real sacrifice that had to be borne, not only by the workless, but by many of the lower-paid workers who were obliged to pay the levy and the 3d in the £1 charge on wages and salaries.. To increase the tax must inevitably add to hardship, and the Unemployment Board recognised that such a courso was to be avoided if that was at all possible.

Yet, he said, so convinced arc the members of the board that men now engaged in unproductive work should be moved into productive industry, and so inescapable is the conclusion that further cash must be provided to this end, that they have been compelled to consider the necessity for r commending an increase in the charge on wages and salaries by 2d in the £I—that is to say, from 3d to sd. It may be possible to arrange things without making any further increase in taxation. I am as anxious as anyone is to avoid additional taxation if possible, but it is impossible to change the present position of the unemployed unless more money is made available. Given the necessary funds, the Unemployment Board and the Government will proceed vigorously with the task of moving men into productive work.