THE H.B. TRIBUNE. MONDAY, JULY 10, 1916. PRECEPT AND PRACTICE.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VI, Issue 177, 10 July 1916, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE. MONDAY, JULY 10, 1916. PRECEPT AND PRACTICE.

While our Government has been loudly preaching from the housetops the need for individual economy in personal expenditure, so that the national resources may be husbanded as far as possible .to meet the exigencies of the war, it has, beyond the very obvious and inevitable device of imposing extra incometaxation, done virtually nothing in the way of passing legislation that would assist to that end. As a matter of fact, it is more than probable that, could a searching analysis be made, the population of the Dominion is. as a whole, living much more extravagantly and spending more money on non-essentials than at any time during its history, and economy in the expenditure of the vastly increased national income is about the last thing that has been forced upon the attention of an exceptionally prosperous generation. It is a wehaccepted and quite sound theoiy that war-taxation should aim at two purposes —the raising of the extra revenue which the direct ne“s-! sities of the war demand, and the prevention of over-indulgence m luxuries. In none of its measuies has our National Ministry taken this last and very important factor into serious or appreciable account. All channels of extravagant and unproductive. expenditure have been left as open as in the times before the war. and. in many cases, have teen substantially widened without the Government taking any steps whatever to check a very mamfesr tendency. The importation of mxurms has been allowed to proceed without anv fiscal check or any material kind, and the limited freight-space available for bringing merchandise to our shores has, iu a large measure, been appropriated by the carriage of many things that we could well do without, thus crowding out, and raising the cost of, the. things that are relatively indispensable. The Finance Minister has steadfastly set liimseilwith but negligible exception, against, any extra impositions which would serve, to reduce the volume. such imports, and compel the people with money to spend to look for investments for their surplus cash in directions which would prove more serviceable to the State and to the Empire. AV hen urged to it, he has failed to adduce any good reason for non-compliance. When bis attention was drawn the other day to the enormous increase in the number .of motor cars coming into the Dominion, a very .large proportion of them from America, he advanced as a reason for non-interference the fact that we should in the near future be looking to the United States +o. accept our exports, and that therefor-’ we should do nothing to alienate the goodwill of a prospective marki.t. But anyone who knows the basis of American overseas trade will know that America will take from us just such produce as her wants compel, and will be but little influenced by anything in the way of reciprocity. American traders, too, are quite reasonable enough to understand that, in this time of Imperial stress, every member of the Empire is bound in honour to every other to restrict as far- as possible the importation of wares from neutral countries. Americans must recognise that all measures to that end are justifiable. More especially is this the case with the United States, where the question of international exchange is one of immense embarrassment and a source of grievous loss to the Empire. Yet. "every car we. here in New Zealand, import from America goes to aggravate the conditions which we should be striving to ameliorate, and also, by competition, serves to. enhance prices against the British Government as buyers for essential war purposes.

Again, when the question of the taxation of amusements is mooted to the Finance Minister, he declines to entertain the suggestion, because, he savs, the purveyors of entertainment will be heavily hit- by his income-tax proposals. This can only be suggestive of the fact that these same. purveyors are reaping exceptional profits during war-time, which., m turn, can only mean that there is an abnormal expenditure by the people upon ephemeral pleasures that yield no lasting advantage. That this is the case may be judged from the fact that a Christchurch syndicate purposes investing no Liss than £lOO,OOO in the erection of further picture-theatres in the larger centres of population, which surely. already furnish quite sufficient facilities for popular expenditure in this direction. Yet, with so many urgent and and vital needs of the Empire, calling for financial aid, Sir Joseph Ward appears to see no need for putting some effective break upon the. inducements offering to the people for frittering away the resources which should be made available for the use of the State. Shortly he will be appealing to the country to lend substantially 7 towards the provision of funds for the conduct ot our share in the war, but, in the meantime, takes no notice ot the fact that so large a sum as £lOO,OOO is to be thrown into an enterprise that can operate m no direction excepting to dissipate the people’s earnings for no useful purpose. The, Minister has also advanced the cost of collection of such items of revenue as taxation . ot amusements as leaving but little m : the way of net results. M e may 7 be pardoned some little doubt as to whether some means of collection could not be devised which would obviate this objection. But, granting his contention, it is easy to conceive that an imposition of this nature ■would be beneficial, even should no very great volume of net revenue be secured. There must surely be something very much the matter with the ideals of a country and a Government that at such a crisis contemplates without a qualm the spending ot ■£loo,ooo in adding to the scores, it not hundreds, of places of amusement already available to so limited a population. It the Government

cannot wake up to the reality of things, there can be little hope of arousing the people to their manifest duty.