TAXATION OF INDUSTRY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20172, 5 February 1929, Page 11

TAXATION OF INDUSTRY.

GAS COMPANY'S PROTEST.

"GOVERNMENT PATERNALISM."

BRAKE ON PRIVATE ENTERPRISE

"If there is one thing that saps the vitality of a nation more than another, it is paternalism in Government; it puts a brake 011 the wheels of industry, and it closes the door on individual effort," said Sir George Elliot', chairman of directors of the Auckland Gas Company, in addressing shareholders at the annual meeting yesterday. Referring to the gravely serious effect, on the private industrial life of the country, produced by non-taxation of Governmental and municipal trading concerns, the chairman said land and income tax and local rates paid by the company in the past year amounted to £25,799 19s Bd, and were equal, by way of indirect taxation, to a thousand cubic feet 011 all gas consumed. Users of electric light and power paid nothing, owing to the fact that, with perhaps one exception, Government and municipal trading concerns were exempt from taxation. Rates and taxes were necessary to carry on the activities of the country, and why a Governmental or municipally-owned industry should be exempt was beyond comprehensioji. The present state of affairs meant that the burden must b» carried by the private trader, and sitico Government and municipal activities were being extended, the burden, would increase and might become unbearable. Unless some Government, some day, awakened to the futility of this communistic dream, it could only be a question of time until certain large concerns, apart altogether from the gas industry, would be forced seriously to consider closing the New Zealand portion of their businesses. If that time was allowed to come it would be a sorry day for the Dominion. At a later stage in the meeting, Sir George reverted to the relations of Government and industry in New Zealand, lie said that in 1919 wide powers had been conferred on the Board of Trade in its authority over nearly every class of business in the country, and in 1924 the gas industry felt their weight. The New Zealand regulations were based in part on those of Britain, where, from 1859, testing of meters was instituted, followed in 1871 by regulation of the price of gas, and in 1920 by determination of the calorific value of gas. Now in New Zealand there was Government testing of meters and gas, and the Board of Trade set sale-price limits. Yet in three years of such control the price and quality of gas had not been affected. These embarrassing and useless regulations had cost the company £1423 in the past year. Meanwhile, electrical concerns went tax-free, their prices wem not regulated as they might be, and they were subject to 110 annoying and superfluous restrictions.