POLITICAL POINTS

Evening Star, Issue 19942, 11 August 1928, Page 2

POLITICAL POINTS

TEACHERS! SUPERANNUATION [From Ock Pabliamestaki Reporter.] WELLINGTON, August 10. “The Committee is or opinion that the whole question raised by this petition should be reconsidered.” states the Education Committee of the House in recommending that the petition of Wm. Sterling, of Blackball, be referred to the Government for the most favourable consideration. Petitioner asked that broken service be counted for teachers’ superannuation purposes, and his request is typical of a large number presented to Parliament during tho ession. THE MUSTY-FUSTY PAST. In winding up his Budget speech in the House to-night the Minister of Education, Mr Wright, embroidered his dissertation with strips of quotations from ancent ‘Hansards,’ and delved into the weariome depths of typewritten and printed matter. Mr Ransom (Nationalist member for Pahiatua), who is outspoken on the comparatively rare occasions when he claims the attention of the House, noted this, and observed that it was a pity the Minister had wasted so much time in order to cast a slur upon the Loader of the Opposition and the Labour Party. It always struck him as an awful waste of time to delvo into musty-fusty records to find what were the opinions of men twelve or twenty years ago ft was ; thc future that mattered. When a man was continually looking back to the past his usefulness to the country was mine. Tho Minister bad said not one hopeful word about the future. Apparently he had no desire to look forward to the solution of problems and the surmounting of national difficulties. What he had said was that New Zealand could only hope for a reduction in taxation if a boom year came. That was a sorry prospect. Boom years should be years | for putting by a reserve. If boom years were to be our onlv salvation, then the chances of taxation reduction under the present Government wore remote indeed. • * * FIGHTING FOR THE BIG MAN. The member for Ellesmere {Mr Jones) caused astonishment to the Loader of the Opposition during the financial debate by demonstrating how Mr Holland, perhaps unwittingly, had been fighting for the big man when he had strongly criticised the present taxation system as affecting that class. Mr Jone denied that farmers were able to. escape their fair proportion of taxation under land tax. If a fanner had £IBO,OOO invested in land of that value, unimproved, his land tax would be £5,500; but if he transferred that capital to investments at 6 per cent, his income tax would he £2,400. Therefore Mr Holland was actually agitating in the of the big landowners, who were very anxious to pay their taxation on the basis oi their incomes.