PROGRESS OF CAMPAIGN

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 148, 26 June 1933, Page 10

PROGRESS OF CAMPAIGN

HE. WEIGHT'S STAND

NO RATES INCREASE

■Speaking at an open-ah' meeting in Farish Street on Saturday : night in continuation of his campaign as a candidate for the City Council, Mr. E. A. Wright, M.P., emphasised that any increased expenditure this year on the part of the City Council would inevitably lead to an increase in rates.

At the present time, said Mr. Wright, the council was faced with an additional impost of £37,000 for high exchange, for which provision must be made, and that would tax the council severely. If any further expenditure -was' added certainly the rates must be increased. He would protest_ most strongly against any increase in the rates unless such increase was absolutely necessary. , .A large proportion of ratepayers, Mr. Wright continued, were working men who were unable to pay more. There was also a large business community which had its own difficulties. It was popularly supposed that because a man was in business he necessarily must be doing very well, but the speaker was satisfied that probably 90 per cent, of the business people in Wellington, and New Zealand generally, had shown no profit on their year's working, and many of them, particularly tho large firms, had made, heavy losses during the past year and this year. Passing through the- streets one noticed the legend "To let" in empty,shop windows and was reminded that a business that had been there, in some cases for many years, had gone. There was a tragedy'behind that notice: a man or a woman had invested what capital he or she had in fittings and stock, and because of thefalliu prices and slackness of trade had lost everything and had gone, out penniless. Any further city expenditure which would result in an increase in the rates, Mr"., Wright concluded, was unthinkable.