SPEECH BY DR, FINDLAY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LVI, Issue LVI, 22 July 1909, Page 5

SPEECH BY DR, FINDLAY.

"NEW IDEALS OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT."

(.PRESS ASSOCIATION.] DUNEDIN, July 22.

The Hon. Dr l<mdlay addressed a large meeting here last evening on "iSe\v Ideals of Democratic Government," and the question of death duties.

The Minister said New Zealand was far in advance of most other countries in the matter of progressive legislation, and the ideal which he and others kept steadily in view was higher civilisation — morally, physically and intellectually. The chief function of the State was to meet men and women, and make- them more effective members of our social system, giving them freedom of opportunity. Let us, he said, have national wealth, but let it go hand in hand with a decrease of

NATIONAL WANT. The feeling had gradually grown up that the State should be kindly, beneficial, and tend to uplift people by raising the individual standard. They should begin at the bottom with the prisoners in gaols and make them better citizens, and' also with the lowest class, and determine how the waste of health, wealth and work could best be restricted.

THE WASTE OF WORK was the most important matter for the State. They lately had evidences of unemployment, and while this represented a loss of wealth it meant a greater loss in the shape of demoralisation of character, arising from the feeling of despair and resulting in intemperance, ineptitude and loss of fitness. Phe Government should aim to bring within reach of the willing worker means to equip himself to earn a livelihood. The speaker also referred to the waste of capital, which was essentially a loss to the laboring interests. The waste of ' capital in New Zealand was exceedingly great. This could be checked in a large measure by an intelligent Bankruptcy Act.

HELPING THE LABORER. To obviate, to some extent, the waste of wealth by non-use, the Government was about to come to the aid of the laborer without capital by placing him on the land, for which, under certain conditions,* he would not be asked to pay rent for 18 months. The State must find means whereby the people's leisure time could be employed. Let it find music and art and proper theatres, art galleries, etc. There was no more difficult and dangerous path for State action than artificial interference with THE DISTRIBUHON OF WEALTH, but it was the State's duty to enforce, if possible, a more equitable and fair distribution of wealth. A start liad been made already and more would be done by altering the death duties, and taking care that wherq men made money it should not pass into the hands of a man wlio had not made it and who squandered it idly. The waste from mis-use and non-use of land was probably greater here than anywhere else.

UNEMPLOYMENT

was often beyond the control of the agencies of the Government, but there should be no unemployed class in New Zealand. Unemployment was a national question, and it must be attacked by systematic, proper radical methods and which ' should not be a mere palliative. Speaking of

THE DEATH DUTIES, he . said the duty may serve two purposes, i.e., a revenue to the State and the distribution of the wealth.. The desirability of this was agreed on by men of different schools of political thought. There was a growing current opinion in favor of this view, which he believed tended to lessen the evil of waste wealth and idle viciousness of life which frequently followed inheritance of large fortunes. The defects of the New Zealand duties lay in the nonuniform graduation of the rate, shown by the fact that an estate 1 of £5000 pays £175 and one of £5001 pays £350. GRADUATION FORESHADOWED.

Graduation should proceed on a uniform, slowly ascending scale, like the graduated land tax, with a sur-tax on the share taken by any one individual when the share exceeds a certain amount. The limit of the total exemption was too low. Where a remote lelative, particularly outside New Zealand, takes intestacy, the tax should be greatly increased, and • the exemption of charitable gifts now frequently the subject of litigation and uncertainty should be on a more satisfactory footing. Some provision should be made that where a property is left or passes on to oersons other than near rela-

tives, the wealth these persons already own should be first ascertained, and, if they are already wealthy, an additional rate should be imposed on the value of property so left on passing to him.