PAYING PETER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26233, 17 August 1946, Page 6

PAYING PETER

During the lengthy preamble to the Budget proposals—a preamble which though hardly sufficiently inspiring for an electioneering address was nevertheless intended to lull the listeners by a most favourable account of social and economic progress during the past 10 years of Labour Government —Mr Nash gave figures concerning the. increase in private incomes. The net aggregate private income, he said, increased from £52,700,000 in 1935 to £117,300,000 in 1945. This is impressive enough, even -under a policy of mild inflation, but what Mr Nash left his audience to figure out for themselves was the fact that the demands of an insatiable Government have risen at least commensurately. The lesson to be drawn from the new Budget proposals, though it is well camouflaged, is that the Government is desperately in need of money. A few other comparative figures over the period referred to by Mr Nash set the picture in a truer perspective. In the Budget presented in 1936 the total revenue was £26,172,000, and in 1946 the estimated revenue was £ 193,800,000. The estimate for 1947 has not been directly given, but from a computation of the totals under various headings it would appear that it will not be below £180,000,000. The difference between a war-time and a post-war Budget is not impressive, especially when the works programme cannot be regarded as unduly heavy. Some further comparison may be gained from the growth of the Consolidated Fund, although as the Year Book for 1945 points out, “until comparatively recently the operations of this fund afforded an excellent comparison of State revenue and expenditure from year to year, but successive changes in system have largely destroyed the comparability of the figures.” This fact in itself may not be without significance. In 1936 the receipts of the Consolidated Fund totalled £26,172,368. By 1946 the figure was £58,500,000, and for 1947 it is shown at an estimated £100,382,000. This, however, is the total of all taxation receipts other than for the Social Security Fund. The cost of Government has clearly increased at an alarming rate, and this is confirmed by the fact that the actual relief which is to be granted is very small. Sales tax reductions do not make more goods available, and the income tax relief is patently a sop to Cerberus. The Budget may be disappointing at first sight, but a closer examination should reveal it to be a most disturbing document.