TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Southland Times, Issue 19508, 6 May 1922, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

The view that the present scale of taxation in Britain has exceeded the nation’s taxable capacity has been endorsed on several occasions by Mr R. McKenna, chairman of the London Joint City and Midland Bank. Discussing the matter recently he said that if taxation continues so high as to give only a very small return for additional effort and for the risk of additional capital, it will become a matter of general occurrence that the effort will not be made and the capital will not be risked. Looked at from the point of view of national wealth and prosperity, in which we all have an interest, it is bad policy to deprive business men of the stimulus of a reasonable return for the-r labours. But the question is not merely one of the discouragement of effort. We know that if business' is to expand and prosper continuous additions must be made to the capital employed. A growing business—and at every period it is upon the growing business that the progress of the future depends—is one whicn i large part of the profits each year are saved and put back in the concern. By this method the energetic and capable young man slowly acquires the addition.il capital he needs for development. If now the whole or a large part of his savings is absorbed each year in taxes he ,'s deprived of the means of enlarging his business.* New plant cannot be acquired, additional stock cannot be bought; growth becomes impossible. Everyone is agreed that taxation of the poor on such a scale is to deprive them of the means of obtaining the necessaries of life is morally wrong. But it is not generally accepted that excessive taxation of the rich is economically wrong. Most rich men do not spend the whole of their income on their own consumption. Some part, and often a very considerable part, is saved, and these savings are lent as industrial and commercial capital. A high super-tax in the case of the rich is largely a tax upon savings, and the money taken by the State is withdrawn from productive use and spent upon consumption. In a healthy condition of a State no more should be raised in taxation than will leave an amount available for capital development sufficient to meet all the needs of business.

The monument which has been erected at Biarritz to the memory of King Edward VII. was unveiled there recently by Lord Hardinge, British Ambassador in Paris. In the course of his speech, he said it was King Edward and the British Government who instructed him in 1908 to point out to the Kaiser how great was the anxiety felt in England regarding the works of the Kiel Canal, which were threatening England’s tranquillity, and could only lead to deplorable competition in naval construction. Lord Hardinge proceeded: “The Kaiser was furious at what I told him in obedience to instructions, and disavowed any hostile intentions, stating that it was he that directed the foreign policy of Germany, and that he would refuse to consider for an instant the idea of war with England. Finally he refused to modify the German naval programme in any way whatever. It is hardly necessary to state that

King Edward was profoundly dissatisfied with this refusal, which only confirmed his views as to the rq*/] intention of the Kaiser. The German argument has always been that Germany was forced into the war by the so-called policy of encirclement that is attributed to King-Edward. This theory is absolutely void of foundation, for King Edward hated war and wished to be at peace with all his neighbours. The title he loved and so well deserved was Edward the Peacemaker. Unhappily the reign of this wise far-seeing Sovereign was much too short for the full results of his political sagacity to be achieved.”

Within the past year the number of wireless telephone receiving sets in America has increased from 50,000 to 600,000 The ease with which the apparatus can be installed, and the trifling expense of the equipment, will, it is believed, ensure the installation of radio communication in every American home in the early future. All that is required is a small aerial on the roof communicating with a simple receiving set in the room where the family foregather, to hear a sermon on Sdnday morning, a popular concert in the afternoon, and a lecture in the evening. The entire country is plotted into, circuits, with a central station, where the “aerial goods” are distributed with regularity and complete efficiency. It is not suggested that the radio-telephone for communication between individuals will succeed present, systems, but that is about the only feat which cannot be accomplished. The precise effect upon churches, places of entertainment, and lecture halls cannot yet be ascertained, but no serious rivalry is expected. To-day American farmers in distant hamlets receive weather forecasts by wireless, and rustic life, usually very dull, is-i daily enlivened at a cost below that of* an ordinary gramophone. Apropos of Mary’s wedding, American wireless authorities declare that we are within measurable distance of the time when wedding bells and Abbey music in England will present no obstacles whatever to radio engineers.