CORRESPONDENCE

Grey River Argus, 16 August 1934, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE

CLASS LAWS. (To the Editor.) Sir, — Profit is a value received above the value given for service; commercially speaking valued in £ s. d. Thrift is a value saved from what you have received for service valued in £ s. d. Internally, a country cannot increase in wealth, it can only transfer its property or its goods from one to another. For a country to increase in wealth that wealth must he brought into the country. New Zealand has exported millions worth of products above her requirements and imported millions worth of products that she required, so she had a balance in her favour. Everyone is directly or indirectly effected by our exports and imports. Tf our exporters and importers would stop wrangling about tin* exchange rate ami look at it from a humanitarian point of view, and our Government take the value and employ our unemployed at a standard rate of pay in beautifying our towns and country and macadamising our roads, everyone in New Zealand would directly and indirectly be affected by the circulation of that value, and be benefited by it. In a few years wealth would be flowing into New Zealand from every part of the (;lo.be to a country where there was no poverty and everyone was employed, working for the benefit of one another. There would be no agitators or opposition, and our communists would disappear, and it would be what our politicians call balancing the budget, for externally there would be no debt. Would it not be more reasonable if our teachers of theology would teach us to pray to the Creator to punnish us for doing wrong, for by doing wrong, we have done an injustice to someone, and it is only right that we should be punished to make an atonement for the injustice we have done. The administration of our laws is the height of hypocrisy, for a person in indigent circumstances steals a few shilling worth of goods and is sent to

prison for committing a crime, and a person in a higher social scale steals a few hundreds and is let off on probation. It is time the discretionary powers of our Magistrates and Judges were taken away. There ought to be, a set penalty to the value of crime committed, and a person charged ought to have a fair trial, and if found guilty pay the penalty ami if it is committed again, double the penalty. Leniency is an incentive, punishment is deterrent. Man is good, but our class laws have corrupted him and made us all hyproc rites. Bankers, politicans, judges, law vers, editors, professors of commerce and theology or any other ologies’ service is just as essential to the community as that of the farmer.

Then the scavenger, wharf labourer, seaman, miner, sawmiller, navvy' and all other artisan’s service is just as essential as their’s. But the fly in the ointment is that there is such a disparity in the value that they' receive for their service, and until cur system is altered, the community will not be any better off, that is. until they send men to Parliament to repeal all class laws and base all taxation on income J ami everyone pay an equal proportion * for what they' receive for their ser- *< vice. It would mean a* equitabloc distribution of our wealth. A eoun-f--try like New Zealand with a balance/ ( of millions is talking about a deprotf* sion. T wonder what prosperity wouii mean”—l am etc., J. WARD. * ■L