STERN REALITY OF WAR

Southland Times, Issue 24166, 1 July 1940, Page 4

STERN REALITY OF WAR

PRIME MINISTER COMMENTS ON BUDGET

(United Press Association)

WELLINGTON, June 29.

Commenting on the taxation proposals in the Budget, the Prime Minister (the Hon. P. Fraser) this afternoon said that they were certainly drastic and fell heavily on all sections of the people. They would bring home to everyone the stern reality of the war and the imperative need of sacrifice, voluntary or compulsory. Every step the Government had taken in meeting the war situation, every penny of war expenditure and more to follow, said Mr Fraser, were necessary if we wished to continue to live as a nation and as part of the British Commonwealth of Nations. It was a clear case of pay or perish. After discussing the disadvantages of alternative schemes for raising money for war purposes, such as inflation or a drastic reduction in social services, Mr Fraser said that the duty of the Government was to raise money for New Zealand’s war effort and to distribute the inevitable burden of payment as fairly as humanly possible throughout the community. It was the people’s duty to rally to the support of the country’s war effort in every way possible and to pay willingly, even at a sacrifice, because all that we held dear in our country, the Commonwealth, and the liberty and lives of its people, were at stake, and their successful protection depended on the helpful effort of each and all of us.