Manawatu Evening Standard. WEDNESDAY, AUG. 22, 1945. LIVING IN THE WAR.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 225, 22 August 1945, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. WEDNESDAY, AUG. 22, 1945. LIVING IN THE WAR.

It seems extremely difficult for the Minister of Finance to realise that the war has ended and that there should be relief from the high rate of spending" of the past six years. With the surrender of Japan came the hope that the Budget, whose presentation almost coincided with the event, would lie revised and corresponding relief given to the taxpayers who have cheerfully borne their burdens in the cause of victory. Mr Nash thinks and decides otherwise. Not only is there to be no reduction in taxation, however slight, but he has revised his estimates on a rising instead of a downward scale —io the public's amazement. It is a very difficult matter to believe that it is more costly to maintain soldiers in peace awaiting return to their homeland than in fighting, but the Minister of Finance apparently does so, and his ostimafes have risen. For instance, pay and allowances have risen from £35,200.000 in the Budget to £38,972,000 in the revision, at. a time when it is everywhere hoped that with the demobilisation of personnel at home and returning from over--seas this item would be lower. All the items except two reflect this attitude of the Minister's mind and the decreases are swamped by the increases, which take the grand totals of the Budget from £105,400,000 to £139,249,000. In this latter sum, notwithstanding a surplus of £9,000,000 in the War Expenses Account, which could have been applied for the purpose this year, is £23,000,000 for deferred pay and gratuities, which are now taken into calculation, though the procedure in respect to gratuities has not yet been determined. Even after allowing for these two items, the country is required to stand an additional expenditure of nearly £11,000.000 though it may well happen that a substantial portion of the total increase may not come to charge in the present financial year. Nevertheless, the Minister has seen fit, with his penchant for dealing astronomically in figures, to make the fullest revision he possibly can, and he must stand condemned for an attitude wholly out of tune with the times. In his Budget he entirely failed to grasp the significance of the transition from war to peace. His grim statement of August 9 is made grimmer by his revision, when the country is looking for a lead to make rehabilitation, reconstruction, and expansion successfid. In maintaining at the present drastic rates he estimated this year's yield at £110,000,000 against £108,000,000 collected last year; actually, the Government takes more than 10s.in the pound, more than half the value of production. The average family of four, the public should not forget—and the Minister does not intend theyj shall, at least this year—pays £2BO in taxation before it can start to meet living expenses, with taxation at £7O a head. This is the very substantial' reason why living costs remain high and why there can be no real progress in reconstruction until fhe"burden is lightened. "The time has not yet come," the Minister said in the Budget, to release the brakes and his revision enhances this attitude-of mind.

In a Budget in which payments were only reduced by £25,000,000, or 19 per cent., on the War Expenses side, it is a matter of surprise, and not a little consternation, that the Minister should find <it necessary to make an upward revision instead of a substantially lower one.