STAGGERING BURDEN

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17436, 7 April 1931, Page 7

STAGGERING BURDEN

TAXATION IN BRITAIN DANGERS OF SPENDING LONDON, Feb. 27. There were some interruptions during a speech by Mr. RajnSay MacDonald to leading industrial and commercial men of the Midlands at a baminet of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce in Birmingham last night, when the Premier referred to the "staggering burden" which this country was carrying. lie promised that not an hour would bo lost in getting into working operation the House of Commons Committee to consider expenditure. A nation had to follow the same rules as a person, and there was one fundamental error they must avoid. "We must not spend national capital a»s though it were national income." "We have to consider," continued Mr. MacDonald. "th« psychological effect of ttixation to-day as much as economic and revenue effects. We dare not. tax the hearts of our people. We may put our hand into the pocket, but if in doing so we plunge them into deeper and deeper depression, then the raid on the pockets is to be of very little value indeed." Referring to the problem of trade, the Premier said-a product had value when it passed into consumption, and he suggested that the question of getting the goods off the market to the consumer in the right way had never been properly studied. Was that true? he asked. (Voices: No, no.) "GO TO BUSINESS" "You go to your Government Departments and serve an apprenticeship there," commented Mr. MacDonald. (A voice: No, go to business.) lie insisted that it was the part of the British problem—the industrial problem—which must be studied more and more in order to make salesmanship and the marketing of goods more and more efficient, (There was again dissent and counter-applause.) Referring to the translation into life of the inspiration of the countryside and the vision which came from contemplation, he said that those dreams and those thoughts were the physical life-blood of its industry. It had been created and nurtured by honest labor of the lowest and the will and the genius of those most prominent. "That is what Flight nd is," he added. A voice: "Was." Another voice: "Was to me." "Is and is to be," repeated Mr. MaoDonald. "Is, was, is, and will be. That pessimist who talks about. •was's' is killing our life industrially and spiritually."