THE BURDEN OF TAXATION

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 19 February 1931, Page 9

THE BURDEN OF TAXATION

MUST BE REDUCED “A revival of trade does not come back by the same methods that have destroyed it. The colossal crime of overloading the commercial life of the country with obligations it cannot stand has sinned against t.he law that go-f veins finance. This can only be stopped and remedied by reversing the policy that has imperilled, and continues to imperil, our financial stability.” Sir Walter Runciman declared in a letter to “The Times’ 5 recently. He traced the growth of taxation since Harcourt’s “destructive death duties,” which have ruined hundreds of worthy landowners and commercial firms of importance,” and the 1910 Budget which “bequeathed ravaging consequences on legitimate trade.” In conclusion, he wrote:—“l have been asked to express my views as to the prospect of a revival of trade, and my definite answer is: There can bo no permanent improvement until the burden of taxation is in every form reduced to a limit when trading can bo carried on at a profit, and pauperism not only stopped, but poor creatures who arc yearning for it given employment. The task of undoing the mischief Which has sunk so deeply for long years into our national life by unsound, ill-formed, slovenly administrative judgjnent will call for men of preeminent skill and courage. It may not be, in competent hands, entirely insoluble. The Labour Party are not the original authors of the debacle. It was there gaping at them when they took office.”