WAR AND CIVIL SPENDING

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 61, 10 September 1945, Page 4

WAR AND CIVIL SPENDING

In spite of the strong case made out by the Opposition in the taxing Bill debate for some relief from the present heavy burden, the Minister of Finance remained unmoved. All that Mr. Nash would say was that there will be a reduction in taxation next year, which, as a member of the Opposition pointed out, means that the taxpayer will receive no relief in income tax payments until the beginning of 1947. By then the war will have been over for approximately eighteen months. Some of the statements made by the Minister in defence of the retention of the existing rates iof taxation call for examination. (Replying to an interjection by Mr. Algie, who asked if the Minister thought he might have just enough to meet his requirements,- Mr. Nash said: "We haven't got, inside the work we are doing, any more than is required to ensure that the cost of the war up to demobilisation will be provided for. The answer to it is this: if we don't get

the taxation we have got to borrow money. I haven't the slightest doubt that we ought not to dream of borrowing any more money for war. If we are to pay the costs that are coming to, charge we have got to tax if we are not to borrow, and this proposal is the logical, simple proposal with regard to the matter, and nothing else." We cannot agree that the course Mr. Nash 'is following is as logical or as simple as he would have the public believe. As was stated in the Budget, this year there is to be no transfer from the Consolidated Fund to the War Expenses Account. In other words, the money which ordinarily would have been transferred from one fund to another jis not now to be used for war purposes. But that does not mean that it is not being expended. Instead of l.being used for war purposes it is being used to increase civil expenditure which is already at an unprecedentedly high level. In this way the Government is taking to itself the right to do, at the expense of the taxpayer, what it will not allow the people to do—increase their civil expenditure. It is further evidence of the Government's belief that it is much better qualified to spend the people's money than are the people themselves. j