Manawatu Daily Times. THURSDAY, JULY 12, 1923. FINANCIAL DEBATE.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 2694, 12 July 1923, Page 4

Manawatu Daily Times. THURSDAY, JULY 12, 1923. FINANCIAL DEBATE.

i? It may be a year or two yet befo.re an incredulous Parliament and an in- , different public realises that the Leader of the Opposition is taking his poli- ; tics seriously, but there can be no question that the speech Mr Wilford i delivered in the House on Tuesday night in opening what is popularly known as “the Budget debate” was a highly creditable performance, and one that obviously impressed his critical audience. Mr Wilford always starts out with a goad presence and an easy confidence, but on this occasion ho added to these advantages a student’s knowledge of the subjects he essayed to discuss, lie did not frame a mere tirade against the Government; indeed, his attitude was constructive rather than destructive, and when lie sat down the Hon. W. Downey Stewart, the ready debater of the Ministry, who was deputed to reply, obviously found ■ his task a little difficult. Mr Wilford had covered a great deal of ground unexplored by the 'average politician, and even the Minister of Customs was unable to follow him with his usual facility. His main point was that Mr Wilford had changed his mind on a variety of subjects, a reproach that fell a little flat in view of the revolutionary changes in the Reform policy during flic last few years. In the course of his speech Mr Wilford handled very effectively the Prime Minister’s contention of a few days before that the fact of four hundred: companies having been registered i during the previous twelve months 1 proved conclusively there was nothing wrong with company taxation., The leader of the Opposition men-1 tioned the matter, so he said, to illu- i strata the kind of arguments by which the Government was attempting to bolster up its fallacious contentions. The Prime Minister had implied that tiro four hundred companies had been promoter and registered in spite of the excessive taxation of 7/-1 in tire pound against which the business community and the Opposition had been protesting, i But ns a matter of fact not more than five of these companies—and two of these insurance companies—were at all likely to bear the maximum rate of taxation. Twenty-one of them were companies with capital between £25,000 and £50,000; seventy-five with capital between £15,000 and £20,000, and no fewer than two hundred and ninety-four, or three-fourths of the total, with capital between £IOOO and £OOOO. It was by wilful misrepresentation of this kind, Mr Wilford declared that the Government was loading flic big companies with outrage-1 I ous taxation, to be passed on to the ' workers and the farmers. •,