DREARY DEBATE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22867, 23 October 1937, Page 10

DREARY DEBATE

For four weeks the costly time of Parliament has been devoted mainly to debating the Budget, a debate that in the past week has descended to unimaginable depths of dreariness. Only at the beginning was there any point or spark in the discussion. At the least the people came to understand the weight of taxation that rests on each and every shoulder. The Government's favourite rejoinder, repeated in the House again yesterday, has been that taxes assist in the more equitable distribution of the national income. The people, however, find the contention hard to reconcile with a tax on tea, for instance, or on cosmetics, beer or tobacco, or on wages—to say nothing of the levy that even the unemployed must pay. Private purchasing power is leduced in order to enlarge public spending on such projects as the Homer Saddle tunnel or the South Island Main Trunk railway. The Opposition did well to take up the cudgels on behalf of the mass of taxpayers, its successful diversion on the Annual Taxing Bill shaking the Government's complacency. Perhaps that explains what is otherwise inexplicable, why Labour members persist in dragging out a debate that is already dead. It will enter upon its fifth week on Tuesday. Possibly the Government thinks that many words will conceal the lack of argument, especially as the debate is being broadcast. Incidentally the politicians' appropriation of the Dominion's principal radio station for the purpose does not appeal to many listeners, who pay for the service. Parliament has not done itself or representative institutions any credit in the last few weeks. The emptiness of many of the speeches becomes painfully plain by radio, with no ocular diversion to distract the ear. A speedy end should be made of a debate that early lost all point and profit.