NEED FOR ECONOMY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 222, 15 August 1930, Page 6

NEED FOR ECONOMY.

Realisixg the paramount need for balancing the State Budgets, the Loan Council decided that representatives of the Commonwealth and State Governments should confer in Melbourne on Monday to achieve this desirable end. The State Treasurers are to present revised estimates of their expenditure and revenue and the difficulty of their task can be gauged from the drastic taxation increases made by the Federal Government. The latter, to balance its Budget, it will be remembered, has levied additional taxation to secure twelve and a-half million pounds. It is the State Treasurers’ complaint that the Federal Treasurer has not only not “withheld himself from the field of direct taxation, upon which they chiefly rely, but has come in and swept it bare,” says an Australian writer. The charge has been levied against the Federal Prime Minister that instead of reducing Government expenditure he has increased it, steadfastly setting his face against any reduction, even in members’ salaries. It is not surprising that while responsible people are urging that the pruning knife be rigorously applied some Labour Governments prefer to increase taxation, because they know their votes do not come from the people whom they are “shearing” so closely. In urging the State Government of Victoria to reduce its expenditure in order to relieve the burden on the taxpayer, a Melbourne paper cites a splendid example set by one Labour Premier, Mr Hill, of South Australia, a man, it says, who stands high in the Labour movement. He has appointed a committee of five to examine the State’s estimates and appropriations and advise the Government upon retrenchment and other matters necessary to financial stability. The committee consists of expert accountants and men of special experience as far removed from the possibilities of political bias as it is possible to get them. Although appointed only at the end of June, it has already shown opportunities of saving to the extent of hundreds of thousands. It takes account of all governing bodies whatsoever in order that the new order of economy may be general. Had the Government of New Zealand set up such a committee the taxpayer might easily have been relieved of the considerably heavier burden he is to carry as the result of the latest taxation proposals.