The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND SATURDAY, JUNE 28. 1930 “ the price of fun and folly

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1010, 28 June 1930, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND SATURDAY, JUNE 28. 1930 “ the price of fun and folly

IF there is no wisdom in drinking, smoking, gambling and over- • m ? u^enc . e in luxuries, New Zealanders at least pay a stiff price tor their fun and folly. They spend more on tobacco each year than the Dominion, through the Government, spends on the primary education of its children. Their annual drink !’1 and ” le fmes P ai d for drunkenness together are equal to ten years expenditure on the maintenance of public hospitals, "ambling investments legalised and encouraged by the State for easy revenue purposes and illegal bets aggregate yearly a sum sufficient to pay all the State pensions for five years. The cost of luxuries and hectic pleasure each year is not computable, but the amount easily would pay all the expenses of the country’s tour university colleges for a generation. . . These indulgences do not necessarily mean that New Zealand is either a drunken or a daft little nation. Its record in that respect is much better than that of many other countries, including America, which is supposed to be “dry” and eminently sane in its social ideals. And Great Britain, for example, although derecord unemployment, still manages to spend Aaa7,a„° a year on intoxicating liquor. It spends only & 91,00°,000 annually on milk, and £80,000,000 on bread, indeed, drink there is worse than the dole; for every £ spent on unemployment insurance £5 8s is expended on alcoholic liquor. I erhaps the one goes far to explain the other. But it is with New Zealand’s lavish expenditure on pleasure and luxurjr that the Government and the people this year will have to deal in a common-sense way or be prepared to follow Australia quickly into the misery of economic disillusionment. Can the country, spoiled by a long spell of more or less artificial prosperity, afford to go on spending in a carnival mood? This question must be answered with a disconcerting honesty. It cannot. The Dominion is not now earning the money it spends on high living. And far too much of its expenditure goes to countries which not only have no intention of helping New Zealand, but are determined to hamper its export trade. Parliament and the people know the position quite well, and must face it resolutely and adjust economic derangement and depression to its own advantage first, then to the benefit of Great Britain, its best customer and most dependable friend. So far the Government has foreshadowed drastic curtailment of national expenditure with one hand and with the other an increase in taxation. There still is no substance in the shadow of economy, although taxpayers will have no difficulty in discerning the approach of their insatiable looter. It will not be easy for the Government and the Legislature to compel State departments to practise economy, for most of them, if not them all, have become chronic spendthrifts. If a close search were made into their mounting expenditure during recent years, the harassed and impecunious Administration would find a pile of extravagances which, if cleared ruthlessly away, would just about meet the estimated deficit of £3,000,000 this financial year. ill the new Prime Minister have the courage to curtail extravagance and effect departmental retrenchment? It is to be feared that, lacking experience as Minister of Finance, Mr. b orbes will fall into the initial error of listening too sympathetically to plausible departmental advisers who naturally want to hold all that they have gained in the years of administrative blindness and political bluff. In such an event the taxpayers again would have to suffer the brunt of balancing a distorted Budget. Already their burden is grotesque for a country that is in the making and laggard in enterprise. Doubtless they only have themselves to blame for their plight, which is the second worst in the world, for every country always gets the kind of Go\ eminent it deserves. Still, what have New Zealanders done to have been so aridly treated? The retort of politicians may he the argument that the people s record of sport, pleasure and luxury is such in New Zealand as to shatter any demand for a reduction in taxation instead of another increase. In some phases of fun and folly ; that argument perhaps is unanswerable, but the foolishness will | not be eliminated by increasing the existing taxes on the worst or most popular forms of extravagance. What is wanted is the system of taxation the United Party pledged itself to establish—a system which would compel everybody to pay’ an equitable share of the national burden of taxes, and reduce the aggregate for the purpose of promoting individual, and particularly industrial enterprise. Of course, it cannot be disputed that a very severe curtailment of drinking, gambling and all the other money-wasting pleasures would be of enormous advantage to the Dominion, but lias Parliament either the will or the strength to enforce drastic restrictions on community’ over-indulgence in them all ? Reform necessarily must be slow, but there is no reason why’ it should not be practised and made certain. The country has become a fool s paradise because its leaders in politics have not been wise men. Hitherto, the State has set a bad example in extravagance. It is time to mend its wavs and exercise wisdom. And the wisest reform to begin with would be a stiff tax on the luxuries which help foreign countries only and hinder the industrial progress of New Zealand and Great Britain. Encourage British enterprise and make work for our own kith and kin.