NATIONAL ECONOMY

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 117, 13 November 1942, Page 4

NATIONAL ECONOMY

BUSINESS MEN'S VIEWS

(P.A.) WANGANUI, Nov. 12. A Canterbury remit urging the paramount necessity of genuine economy in public expenditure for domestic purposes received unanimous support at the conference in Wanganui of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of New Zealand. The conference reaffirmed a view expressed at the 1941 meeting, the remit adding that the present scale of domestic expenditure was assisting to create burdens of taxation and debt beyond the capacity of the Dominion. It was contended also that expenditure was promoting inflation, diverting manpower and other resources from war purposes and essential production, and was definitely detrimental to the Dominion's economy and war effort. The mover. Professor Tocker, said that for the present year the estimates of local expenditure were' about £187,000,000. of which £133,000,000 was for the war. It was expected that about £ 130,000,000 of this would be raised in New Zealand out of an aggregate private income amounting to perhaps £230,000,000. The conference should urge on the Government the necessity of investigating its ordinary domestic expenditure and imposing the strictest economy, so that it might finance its war expenditure without further inflation.

Because increased population was one of the Dominion's vital needs, further taxation relief for married men with families was advocated in a Dunedin remit, which stated that when security taxes were taken into account the present taxation relief was totally inadequate to cover the average cost of raising each child. Mr. C. E. Begg said that the question must affect the business section and the nation as a whole. There was no doubt that lack of finances prevented some families from being large.

Mr. S. Lawn, who seconded the remit, said that a reasonable cost-of-living bonus in cash would meet the position, and suggested an. allowance of 4s a week for all children after the first or for each child. If such a scheme resulted in an average increase of one child for each family it would be justified, he said.