GRAPHIC NOTINGS

Otago Witness, Issue 3829, 2 August 1927, Page 5

GRAPHIC NOTINGS

By

LENS.

(Specially Written for the Otago Witness.)

Conversationally we sometimes say, “ Present company excepted,” and so with this. The Noting to-day is with reference to those others of the “sad example ” class, with a few becoming worse. Governments in many quarters seem to have reversed the rule of just carrying on, and so collecting as though with an apology. What they do now is look for new ways of spending, in the same way that prodigal families do, and as it entails getting in everything reachable it is suspected that many a Treasurer when going over the programme asks himself the question, Now, how much more can they stand ? Observe, “ can,” not “ will,” experience having begotten the cynic who, when it comes to the people’s voice, is persuaded that between one election and another it is largely imaginary.

Taxation in these days is, in many places, Socialistic in character, even though not in name. Everything a man eats and drinks is taxed in some form, indirectly when not directly, as indirectly includes the affluent of the affluent as well as the affluent itself. And everything he wears and uses is in the same relation, and also everything he does. As regards what he earns, society asks him for at least something if above the exemption, and “ gets at him ” through others if not; when it comes to what he leaves, if it is worth anything at all, then society declares itself a preferential heir to a part, leaving his relatives to gather in what remains through their lawyers. In this connection a large part of the world has suddenly become Asianised, for behold the broken sculptured arches of the dead city, where, sometimes ruminating over the faded past, the Asian shambles along, a seeming semi-primi-tive. It tells, among other things, the story of a taxing system carried to such lengths that after fighting against the eternal fluxing for as long as it could, capital, in any coherent form, became dissolved.

Now, however much a .certain type may rail at it, capital is essential, as without it the dividing line between man and beast becomes as Euclid’s own —without breadth. Although not wholly so capital is the preserved excess, and it is its application and reapplication and reapplication again that makes wealth. The man we refer to as a capitalist is simply the controller of enough of it to make him visible to all as he conducts whatever kind of business has engaged his attention. It is said at times that every man is a capitalist who has anything whatever beyond his actual needs; but the capitalist in mind is the one with enough water-drops at his command to make a reservoir to irrigate industry. He may be a Smith with a few cog wheels, or a Ford with his factories so many that when the sun is down on one it is shining tn another—lie is the one in mind, and Asian-

ism, if continued, is calculated to turn stone into sand and water into vapour. Thj writer knows of only one country where wealth is venerated, and then, perhaps, a little too much—the United States. But run her progress down for the last hundred years, and what a lesson!—a country starting as though on nothing, and now the richest of all. In nothing else is this so impressive as in the way Americans regard a National Debt; and, by the way, it is the secret of why they are so hard with the Allies: they want to spare their own. As an indication:

In 1801 the United States owed £16,607,600. but in 1835 only a balance of £7543 (vide “People's Cyclopaedia’"). J 1865 she owed £569‘18 1,400, the result of the Civil War, but in 1878 only £405,500,000 (vide same). And In 1912 she owed a mere £205,515,000, as consider her population, etc., and then only £193,000,000 of it was interest bearing (vide “Whitaker”). The present National Debt of the United States is large, but then it represents a ' backed bill,” and year by year it is being paid off in large sums, and with it taxes are reduced. The effect on capital is to give it confidence, and a noteworthy thing is that Labour realises that it shares.

Contrarywise, if we are to believe what we are told Russia seems bent on reducing her people to the one dead level, the dictators excepted, ambition being deprived of any goal worth aiming for unless in a land of dreams. And so we have the opposite pictures—the United States with capital exalted, but Russia where it is trodden under foot. It is a peculiar thing how stridently the palpable is denied. Capital and Labour are the two halves of the one thing—the industrial estate, for while capital is the applied preserved excess to provide for fresh activity, Labour is applied effort to continue and increase the process. And there it is, as quite a number of Governments seem bent on fluxing the one, and, by dissipating it, impoverishing the other.

Our friends across the Tasman Sea are unitedly one thing, and, in their State capacity, sometimes another. If we want to select one for the present notice it is New South Wales. As showing how things are trending there, on July 1 the Treasurer was enabled to say that the revenue for the year ended the day before had been well over £44,000,000, and though the State-owned railways and tramways had earned something more than half of it, nevertheless it was found that the income tax payers had furnished nearly £8,000,000, or within sight of £4 for every man, woman, and child in the place. Sufficient for the day is the fruitfulness thereof, and so, with something under £1,500,000 unexpended, the Government asked, Now, what do you think of that for thrift? —and not even those news-

papers that are against it found time to use a pencil to discover that it would work out at only 7Jd in the £.

New South Wales is acting the part of the pacemaker. Until recently the basic wage was on the assumption of a man, wife, and two children—£4 4s a week in the metropolitan area. But the other day it was decided to consider a man and wife only—£4 ss—and where a man can earn no more the State will “care for’’the children —5s a week each, payable to the mother. On top of this the banks have been ordered to pay their employees a much improved salary, de- 1 termined by length of service, and to add something like 13s a week for each child for its proper upbringing. There is no desire to attack New South Wales, but capital over there has ’ become a good deal more than “ timid,” and it wants to know where it is all going to end. Meanwhile it is like the raven croaking, “ £44,000,000! £44,000,000! What of the next drought?”

Study the picture! “Enterprise” is anxious to extend his factory or put up a new one, and with the plans and specifications duly studied and digested is checking things up by reading all that there is to be read with regard to what to do. Somewhere or other there is the contract that needs only his signature* to set things going. He thinks as he goes, and he keeps on thinking, and then he remembers something: While he will be bound his Government will not; while he will be under a contract his Government will be free; while he will be obliged not to do this and that his Government will be able to do anything. And pondering the risk with visibility in a target he suddenly feels a hand on his shoulder—a gentle hand, of course, and just a touch, but with the strength of a whole State in every finger, and with the other hand holding an enactment of some kind or other to give it exercise. So the pen drops, and to make a long story short “ Enterprise ” may come to the conclusion that capital once it ceases to be liquid loses its legs. Who suffers? “Enterprise,” of course, but “Enterprise’s” contemplated hands or extra hands a good deal more, and’ in the long run the State itself.

At one time men feared only lawyers —not the law so much as the outer ring. They did not fear legislators, believing that they had them at their mercy. But the times are changed, for in these days —observe, present company excepted—• those of the kind in mind fear legislators.before any, and if they seek advice with less hesitation than formerly it is because only ‘the lawyer can interpret, and it to find out what should be done or what can be. It is a reflection on progress that in so many places every man who stakes has, as it were, to keep a lawyer at command lest, by acting alone, he should stumble and fall into a ditch.