CRUMBS FROM THE RICH

NZ Truth, Issue 873, 19 August 1922, Page 4

CRUMBS FROM THE RICH

REACTIONARY TENDENCIES OF •: REFORM.

While the Prime Minister is proclaiming that the country is "round the corner," foe is passing a Bill to provide that, until the end of the next year (1923), local bodies may borrow for the purposes of unemployment relief works, without asking the consent of their ratepayers. (The local bodies must, however, secure the Government's consent.)

In other words, the Prime Minister is quite optimistic about next winter, but he is 'preparing 1 . -at the same time to say to next winter's unemployed: "Don't bother me, but go to your local body. If it has already pawned its clothes to pay off (at my dictation) its antecedent liability, make it pawn

its shirt (with my consent), to provide you with .-work," : : s : : * The first local body to rush into the breach has been the Wellington City Council. In anticipation of the passing of the Bill (now before the Legislative Council) the Wellington City Council has decided to borrow £10,000' under the Bill when it becomes law,. Mayor Wright would not accept shortcall deposits for the purpose — that, he says, is municipal "drug-taking"— but he is ready to borrow at a higher rate of interest! • ' It happens that the City Council already holds large quantities of borrowed irion-ey for vaz'ious public works — tramways, roading, etc. According to City Councillor H. D. Bennett, "the municipal departments were bursting with money for the completion of works that had been authorised, and yet somehow they wer6 unable to get on with those works. . . . There seemed to be something wrong .with the Engineer's Department." Here, then, is a fine collection of anomalies: (1) The country is "round the corner." (2) The local bodies can raise unemployment loans next winter without tho ratepayers' consent. (3) The local bodies must not accept temporary deposits at low rates of interest. (4) The Wellington City Council has m hand a great amount of loan money borrowed m London for public works at reasonably low interest. (5) The Wellington City Council must borrow more money probably m a dearer market. (6) The need for economy is pax-amount. » Is it any wonder that the brain of the worker reels when he is confronted with all these proceedings for his betterment? When, moreover, he reads that the Taxation Committee has some doubts as to whether the income tax should or should not be widened so as to 'hit men earning less than £ 300 a year — but has no doubt at all that the land tax super-tax should be lifted off the shoulders of the owners of broad acres? Time was when the principle of placing the tax-burden on the shoulders best able to bear it was unchallenged as a principle, however much it might have been side-tracked m practice. But the Government and the Taxation ■Committee have changed all that. Again, the principle of differentiation between earned and unearned income, to the advantage of the former, was upheld by the Australian Royal Commission on Taxation (with one dissentient). It also passed the test before the British Royal Commission of 1920. But this New Zealand Taxation Committee of "business men" has turned it down. Outbursts of raw extremism have secured more votes for Masseyism than ever Masseyism has secured for itself. Left to itself, Masseyism develops reactionary tendencies that would drive votes into the camp of any sane alternative party, ' if there was one. Just now. Masseyism is engaged m piling up political points against Masseyism. /Unless it re;ceives a windfall m the shape of some fanatical act by someone else, Massey statesmanship is on the verge of bankruptcy. Its one hope is to do as little as possible, and wait for some "blazing indiscretion" on the other side. How well this fact is understood m the Reform ranks is shown by the renewed effort of Kaiapoi Jones to link Up Holland and Fraser with Bolshevism. If Holland and Fraser fall into that trap, so much the worse for them. But if they know no better than to continue polling for Masseyism votes that it would never win upon its own merits, their political education' is hopeless. • ■ ■ •• ■