THE LABOUR PARTY'S PLAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20982, 19 September 1931, Page 10

THE LABOUR PARTY'S PLAN.

Even when allowance is made for the haste with which it was presumably drafted, the statement of the Labour Party's views upon the present situation is not impressive either as an analysis of the national problems or as a prescription for the solution of the difficulties by which the Dominion is embarrassed. It contains a great deal of discursive speculation along the familiar lines of socialistic philosophy, the characteristic feature of which is its sublime indifference to the realities of common experience. These generalisations are not particularly helpful in an emergency which demands clear-sighted efforts of a positive character, based upon a precise definition of the limits which cannot safely be exceeded by legislative and governmental action. I\lany of the recommendations by the party are, however, equally vague in their outlines. There are the usual lavish ideas for public expenditure: further provision from the Consolidated Fund for unemployment relief, such as wrecked the Labour Government in Britain, additional grants to hospital boards, subsidies to producers in the disguise of a guarantee of prices, and so on. There is not the slightest acknowledgment that public and private economy may contribute to the readjustment of economic conditions to a drastic curtailment of the national income. That aspect is ingeniously hidden by the complaint that the parsimony, of the grant to the Government Statistician has prevented the compilation of an accurate estimate of the national income, as though variation of the accepted estimates would extinguish the .large margin between the national income of to-day and of previous years. Stripped of extraneous matter, the report crystallises in the pathetically familiar recommendation of increased taxation on the higher incomes, accompanied on this occasion by the vicious idea of denying contractual obligations in respect of tax-free securities. Advocacy of dangerous doctrines cannot be scrupulous in its choice of terms, but, if there is still any virtue in honesty, its "emergency tax" must be called by its proper name, repudiation. Taken as a whole, the Labour Party's contribution is remarkable for its Complete indifference to the lessons of British and Australian experience, which have demonstrated to all intelligent observation, that disorder in the national finances cannot be repaired by increasing expenditure and piling fresh burdens on to the bowed backs of oppressed taxpayers. When the national wealth is shrinking under the pressure of external influences, the country cannot hope for relief from a political party whose whole purpose is to harass every effort to augment the national income.