UNWISE DISCRIMINATION

Evening Post, Issue 52, 2 March 1935, Page 8

UNWISE DISCRIMINATION

Class discrimination :is always undesirable in legislation, arid while it is unavoidable in many financial measures its tendency should be closely watched. A graduated income tax is now accepted as justifiable as placing the burden, where it can. more easily be borne. In social legislation also the benefits are mainly reserved for the poor, though even this may be carried top far so as to penalise the self-reliant. But when the class distinction drawn is not between poor and wealthy

but between one occupation and another it is definitely dangerous. This kind of distinction is drawn in the Mortgage Corporalio,n Bill, wherein provision, is made for an advance up to four-fifths of the value of the security for farm lands, whereas with oilier securities ihe maximum loan is two-thirds. .The plea that there is greater need among the owners of farm lands does not hold good throughout. The Leader of the Opposition disclosed the weakness of this plea when he asked what was wrong with the security of a worker's home. The value of many home securities has fallen and the owners may find, if they wish to transfer their mortgages from State Advances to the Mortgage Corporation that they cannot show the margin of value the Corporation will demand. This is particularly so with 95 per cent, workers' housing advances—an example of the unsoundness of discrimination even when it is made for special reasons. For the farmers the difficulty is overcome by authorising the Government to guarantee the difference between a two-thirds and a fourfifths loan, but equal favour is not shown to city mortgagors. The principle of the guarantee is open to serious objection, but if it- is to be given at all it should be given to the town as well as the country

borrower,