FURTHER BUDGET.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 219, 14 August 1940, Page 6

FURTHER BUDGET.

'""hint OF POSSIBILITY. A hint that a No. 2 Budget this year was a possibility was given by the Minister of Health (Hon. H. T. Armstrong), in a public address at the Waltham School, Christchurch, on Monday night. After defending the Budget proposals, Mr Armstrong said he was not going to say that more was not to be taken from the workers. New Zealand would be very lucky indeed if it got through the war with-the taxation now imposed. There would be another Budget next year—and there might be a Budget No. 2 next year. “They have done that in England already,” Mr Armstrong said, “and we may have to turn our attention in their direction. ’ Some advocated a capital levy or, in other words, a property tax. That tax would be difficult of collection and imposition. Money and goods were needed to fight the war, and the means of getting the • revenue as it was needed were .wanted. If half the property' in “New Zealand were confiscated, it would not help materially. Additional wealth had to be created before it could be taken. There was no denying that a case was made for a capital levy. “Things are changing so rapidly,’ Mr Armstrong said, “that goodness knows what method we may have to adopt to obtain additional revenue next year, the year after, or, possibly, before this year is out.”