The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND MONDAY, MAY 6. 1929 "KILLING THE TAXPAYER"

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 655, 6 May 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND MONDAY, MAY 6. 1929 "KILLING THE TAXPAYER"

/(S Minister of Finance, Sir Joseph Ward has discovered that even he cannot make £2 appear where there was only £1 before. The discovery is further proof of the ancient truth that no man is ever too old to learn. And the veteran Prime Ministei is learning a great deal about national finance that he eithei did not know before the General Election last year or disdained to heed when he promised to make New Zealand safe for good times and joyous prosperity. Faced with a deficit of over half a million sterling, the State Treasurer had to confess at Hawera on Saturday' evening that, although this balance on the wrong side was not sufficiently large to cause any serious alarm regarding property or business, it was at least big enough to demand a halt in the downward trend of revenue and, of course, the application of a remedy. It is his intention as chief administrator to devise remedial proposals for the consideration of the new Parliament, during its first session. Details of these prospective remedies are still in Sir Joseph’s active mind, and therefore nobody else yet knows their nature and benefits. But the line of the Government’s, or rather the Prime Minister’s, policy has been indicated. It does not lead to the promised land of prosperity. Indeed, it looks as though the remedy will be another financial mustard plaster. There is never much poetry in politics, but there is every reason for anticipating that a poet’s phrase will fit the first Budget of the United Government’s chancellor of the exchequer: ■“The things he vowed he would not do are the things that he has done.” For example, six months or so back Sir Joseph Ward not only declared with passionate indignation that the Reform Government’s pile of taxation was “killing the taxpayer and the ratepayer,” but assured eager and wistfully admiring audiences that, if they elected him to power, an end speedily would be made to high taxation. A platform guarantee was given in the plainest terms and with all the eloquent plausibility of a master optimist, that the present system of taxation would be immediately revised, the maximum amount of income reduced and the high rale of company taxation diminished and finally repealed. One still can hear the cheers of those earners of big incomes who have to surrender about 25 per cent of their income annually to the remorseless tax collector. They hailed Sir Joseph as a great emancipator. Their cheers presently will pass away and give way to derisive protest. There is to be no reduction of taxation. On the contrary taxation will be adjusted so as to secure more revenue from “certain quarters.” As the Minister of Finance now reasonably pleads, no country with a financial balance on the wrong side could claim to be in a satisfactory condition. Quite so, but then a credulous people impulsively put the United Government in power because of a belief that its leader could and would do all the things he vowed to do though these now happen to be the things that will not be done. It is impossible even to guess the “certain quarters” whence more revenue from taxation adjustment will be drawn at pistol point. Perhaps the present death duties will be increased on the safe political principle that the dead cannot protest and that politicians are haunted only by fears of the living. In respect of the financial plight of the State railways the Minister is rather less coherent than usual. Those short lines which preceding Governments favoured as aids to land settlement are “to be stopped forever” and the long new railways they did not favour are to be carried on with haste for the benefit of the unemployed and prospective settlers on lands that formerly were not considered to be worth a railway service. And the Government also intends to go on with a big scheme of land settlement, gloriously indifferent to the fact that it will cost £2,000 merely to acquire land for each prospective farmer. The whole thing would be a political joke if it were less extravagant. It is to be regretted that the Prime Minister could not be sent on an instructional trip to Canada where he would learn how a Liberal Government has been able to reduce taxation, to increase the high scale of exemptions, to promote efficient industrialisation, to secure a surplus of seventy million dollars, and to encourage national prosperity without State interference and meddling with private enterprise. HOPE DEFERRED THE possibility noted in the news on Saturday that the United *■ Government may definitely shelve the Morningside tunnel scheme will not be welcomed by residents of the northern suburbs, nor by those who realise the severity of the economic loss caused through the steep haul from the city to Newmarket and the back shunting necessary there before traffic to the North can resume its journey. In the case of passenger traffic the unwieldy present arrangements inflict irksome delay and hamper the Railway Department in its bid for suburban traffic. , No general scheme designed to prevent overlapping among the suburban transport systems can properly be devised while the tunnel project remains indefinite. If it could be affirmed that the plan would definitely be discarded for thirty or forty years, the Transport Board, which is primarily interested, would be able to shape its plans accordingly and embark on a substantial expenditure with the assurance that the Railway Department, under the handicap of its existing facilities, would remain a negative competitor. Unfortunately, such an assurance is not likely to be given. In the meantime the attitude of the Government may place one or two of the Auckland members of the United Party in an embarrassing position. Mr. J. S. Fletcher, at least, represents a constituency that is closely interested in the proposition, and alive to the benefits its execution will confer. As successor to Mr. F. N. Bartram, an ardent advocate of the tunnel, Mr. Fletcher will be expected to bring all possible pressure on the Government. In this he will he supported, in the House and out, by Mr. H. G. R. Mason, another member whose electorate has vital concern in the scheme. The feature most conspicuous at the moment is that the tunnel plan had promised an opening for a number of workers. To close this opening at a time when such works as the Westfield deviation and Arapuni are drawing to a close, will leave a larger number than ever of idle men in the province. Two years ago it was foreshadowed by the highest possible authority, the Prime Minister of flic day, that work would be begun within six months. Even that was later than desirable, as completion of the new station and the tunnel at about the same time was the ideal. However, “within six months” was better than nothing at all. Had the promise been fulfilled, work would now have been well in hand. Instead of that the preliminary surveys are not yet completed. A large amount of data has been accumulated, but it looks as though even that uoy»: be .wasted. __