DEBUT AS MINISTER

Evening Star, Issue 23620, 5 July 1940, Page 12

DEBUT AS MINISTER

DR M MILLAN OH WEALTH DISTRIBUTION CAPITAL IN TOO FEW HANDS [From Our Parliamentary Reporter.] WELLINGTON, July 4. Making his first Ministerial speech, Dr M'Mulan, Minister of Marine, entered the financial debate in the House to-night to fill the familiar role of answering Opposition criticism. He gave considerable attention-to the Leader of the Opposition, as well as to subsequent speakers, painstakingly following their remarks in order to provide the official answer. , There were some reminders of his former style as a cross-bendi member in his financial remarks. The wealth of the country, said the Minister, was in far too few hands,. 1.6 of the population owning 31 per cent, of the total; 6.8 per cent., owning ,50 per cent.; 27 per cent, of the population owning 83 per cent, of the country’s total wealth. He did not object to any man having the money he had earned, but did object to people with large inherited accumulations, and one of the best means of redistributing the country’s wealth was through succession duties. , Dr M'Millan advised the Leader of the Opposition that ho need not trouble himself over the compulsory loan upsetting the country’s economic life, because the total sum required to bo borrowed internally for the war was £3,500,000. If a compulsory loan of 1 per cent, were levied on the national wealth, with exemption of £SOO for evorvbodv, it would bring in £5.000,000. Mr Forbes: But more loan money is required. Dr M’Millan replied not 'for war purposes, to which compulsion alone applied. He believed 5 per cent, of the country’s capital would not be beyond the capacity of the people to bear. It would bring in £25,000,000.