Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 1945 CASTING THE BUDGET

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 26 June 1945, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 1945 CASTING THE BUDGET

AS the Budget is to be presented fairly, early during the session of Parliament which opens to-morrow it must have already assumed substantial shape. The people will expect it to reflect the changing circumstances of the war. With Japan on our hands 1945 is still a war year. Through a limited amount of armed participation in the Pacific and much more through supply, particularly food, New Zealand is rightly committed to carry a continuing share of the load. Then our fighting men in the European theatre have to be paid, fed, clothed and, when they can be released, brought home restored to civil life. More than that, the debts which war piles up live on after the guns have ceased to bark and part of them is only now coming to charge. Thus, this Dominion is still predominantly on a war footing. The victory that has been won in Europe has to be paid for, while, in the Pacific, we have to fight, supply and also pay. Judging from the comments heard about the necessity for this year’s war loan of £25,000,000 the hope of taxation relief may be in advance of the capacity to give it. At the same time some appreciable scaling down of the heavy burden ought to take place consistent with our obligations. During the year ended 31st March all three service votes and the civil vote in the War Expenses Account were underspent; all of them also were well below the amount for the previous year. The items of Rehabilitation and Reverse Lend-Lease showed an increase on 1943-44. Our rehabilitation bill may be expected to go on climbing and, whatever maybe thought of the policy of compensation for price control being paid by subsidies from war expenses, the cost of them may rise rather than fall during the next year or two. The important point is that the Budget-makers ough! to explore every avenue for cutting down war costs where these have no bearing on the winning of victory, the discharge of commitments or the restoration of our men and women to civil life. Votes sometimes have a habit of staying on the list when they should be wiped off or revised dbwnwards. In the past the service estimates have been generously framed to allow for contingencies. The situation now is more stable and it should be practicable to calculate financial needs for the current Budget year—almost three months of which have passed—with a greater

degree of precision than has been possible since 1940. Has personnel on home service stations been reduced to the minimum required? If not these surplus men and women would be serving their country better by a return to civil life.

In the transition stage from war to peace the Budget should reflect the shifting emphasis. Excessively high taxation militates against reconstruction and budget surpluses may indicate that more is being taken from the people’s pockets than need be. The Government has been shown various places in our economic structure where the burden is pinching and where it ought to be eased. Industry needs relief if resiliency is not to be injured, while the individual taxpayer, particularly the family man, is waiting for a reduction in his total taxes. High taxation is admittedly a brake on inflation but the present level is too high for the community to sustain when the emergency which justified it is gradually passing away.