NATIONAL ECONOMY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 6, 7 December 1931, Page 7

NATIONAL ECONOMY.

CHAAIBERS OF COAIAIERCE ACT. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Dec. 6. Concerted action by all the 45 chambers affiliated to the Associated Chambers of Commerce of Now Zealand is being taken in a short, determined campaign for greater national economy, and a deputation is to wait on the Government shortly to urge the appointment of a non-political commission, according to Air C. AI. Bowden, president of the association.

The association is prepared to use a flying squad -of members to visit the •outlying chambers to ensure that the move has the fullest co-operation, and chambers are being urged to appoint committees immediately to consider the matter and report to the executive. Air Bowden said that conditions had reached such a stage that decided steps would have to be taken to secure greater national economy. The commission proposed should have instructions to prepare urgently, for adoption by the Government, an adequate plan for the adjustment of national and local requirements to the ability of the country to provide the means. The efforts of the Government to effect economies had produced very little result. The reduction in the national expenditure under the Supplementary Budget had been only £200,000, or less than 1 per cent. National and local taxation had risen from a total of £5 14s lOd per head in 1904 to £l7 12s 2d per head in 1930. The national debt hpd increased by £88,000,000 from 1919 to 1929, and the local body debt by £40,000,000 in the same period. Alore than £26,030,000 of direct and indirect taxation would be extracted from the community next year, although the national productive income had dropped by about £31,000,000 since 1929-30. “ “If- the costs that the business community have saved arc only to be taken away again by increased taxation to sustain the irreducible administration system that straddles this country like a Colossus then trade and industry must breathe their last,’.’ said Air Bowden. “These accumulated administrative costs aro now clinging to our backs with the tenacity that the old man of the sea clung to the back of Sinbad. The wells of taxable income are running dry, and the weight of the present taxation cannot be eased until the administrative costs of the Government are reduced.”