The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND THURSDAY, JULY 10, 1930 “THE RED SHADOW”

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1020, 10 July 1930, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET AUCKLAND THURSDAY, JULY 10, 1930 “THE RED SHADOW ”

THIS title might well he given fairly to the latest political effort to lead Australia out of its financial desert. There is a dash of banditry in and about the Federal Budget, and behind it, as part of the reasons for severe levies on taxpayers, there is the symbolic hue of war and Socialism. Perhaps it should he explained that, contrary to the assertions of successive administrators, the World War was not the sole cause of all Australia’s difficulties. For the past ten years the influences of that conflict in which Australia pl'ayed so splendid a part have served as a lulling excuse for borrowing and high interest payments, but in reality the war burden of finance represents only a fourth of the whole Commonwealth’s staggering loan charges. Australia’s national debt now aggregates £1.117,276,000. The annual interest bill exceeds £55,000,000, half of which fortunately, is payable in Australia. Throughout the past decade there has been a loan orgy both by the Federal Administration and the six States. Two great a proportion of the borrowed money has been spent on unproductive activities and such enterprises as help to gain votes for spendthrift Governments. In addition a carefree, spoon-fed, sport-spoiled people has enjoyed a carnival of good times and artificial prosperity. Has it not been said in satirical accuracy that the fall in wheat and wool prices (£40,000,000) last season was not much more than the annual turnover of Australia’s bookmakers?

The day of reckoning lias come at last. And it. has brought much misery and also some belated wisdom. Seven Governments, all more or less daubed with red, arc faced with deficits this year totalling not less than £22,000.000. The final sum may he much larger. It can lie assumed without hesitation that administrative politicians will show the better side of a desperate situation to a gullible public. Still, the plight of Australia today cannot be hidden. The country is in the grip of a crisis. Each Government is confronted with extreme difficulties, and none of them has a magician or spell-binder with ability to maintain the protracted delusion that for every ill there is a political remedy. Australia has been awakened to its sustained folly, and must now pay for its long carnival of reckless, unproductive expenditure and its extravagant methods of work and modes of living. As the new Federal Treasurer, Mr. J. H. Scullin, the Labour Prime Minister, has slapped Australia on the face with a Budget which has had no parallel in the Commonwealth either for disclosure of a serious financial position or for drastic remedies. The voice, of course, is the voice of Scullin, hut the hand is Ihe hand of Theodore. In other words the Prime Minister has had to perform an unpleasant duty, while his first lieutenant is seeking to free himself of a charge of political rascality. It can be said both with candour and commendation that Mr. Scullin and l*Js Ministry have exercised a courage that lias been all 100 rare in the work of Labour Governments. Adversity, no doubt, has made them bold, but they are entitled to some credit for having met it with political valour. Exactly how bold Labour’s remedial financial policy is will he realised and felt soon enough by all the people. The Commonwealth’s visible deficit this year is £14,000,000. This appalling shortage of revenue must be made rip from old and new sources of taxation. Thus motorists, smokers and beer-drinkers are to he called upon to pay more for their pleasures. Cinema films, radio valves and newsprint also are to suffer levies. More exactions will he imposed on taxpayers (companies and individuals) and more particularly ondhose who earn (more than £SOO a year. This will hit heavily taxpayers in New South Wales, where an impecunious •State already has increased taxation and also has imposed a special levy upon the wages of every worker. The cost o'f postage is to be increased to twopence an ounce for letters, giving a prospect of an additional £1,000,000 of revenue. An innovation for this sicle of the world is the Federal proposal to adopt the Canadian sales tax with exemption for primary producers. Everybody else who buys anything else will have to pay an increased charge of 2j- per cent, on the marked cost of all goods. Canada has done exceptionally well out of a 2 per < t. sales tax. The main object of this tax is to extract revenue from those who escape other- forms of direct taxation. But why exempt primary products? - Will “the Red Shadow” fall athwart New Zealand? The Dominion’s plight is not so bad as Australia’s, hut there is no scope for boasting. And the lion. G. W. Forbes has courage. If he should take a leaf out of Mr. Scullin’s book New Zealanders also will realise that tlie day of reckoning has dawned.

THE MAORI HOLDS HIS OWN

AT Wellington, yesterday, the members of the British Rugby team met with and doubtless enjoyed an experience that could not he duplicated anywhere, beyond the shores of New Zealand: they pitted their strength and skill as footballers against the chosen representatives of a native race and found that, man for man and team for team, their opponents were their equals in stamina and true sporting instincts. Jt is true that the Maoris were defeated, but they were far from being disgraced. The margin of superiority and points was a slender one, and the losers proved that the Pakeha lias no monopoly of one of civilisation’s most virile and strenuous pastimes. To New Zealanders the outcome of yesterday’s match may not be unduly surprising. From tlie North Cape to the Bluff the public has learned by experience that the Maori is a mail among men—a man fitted intellectually and physically to take liis share of tlie tasks and pleasures of the community. Yet it must he realised that, to strangers, it remains a remarkable thing that members of a native race should face on equal terms athletes who have crossed tlie world after being picked from the cream of British Rugby. Go where they will —to Australia, Africa, India ; to the Reservations of tlie North American Indians, or the islands of the Pacific—the touring footballers cannot and could not find other native peoples ranking so highly in the esteem of the white man, or earning so conclusively their right to recognition in every sphere of a country’s activities. . If they have had eyes to see and ears to hear, the British visitors must know that far beyond the football field the Maori is playing his part and playing the game. In polities, business and education he has disclosed a merit equal in every respect to that displayed on Wellington’s Athletic Park.

Not the least of the features of yesterday’s game was tlie excellent spirit in which it was played. “It was a game in which the British were matched for two-thirds of the time by a fast, enterprising opposition . . . full credit must be given to the Maoris for their willingness to open up the game oiv all possible occasions . . . they were out to dissipate the myth that with the score against them native sides lost heart.” This, combined with the fact that the cleanness of the play was an example to many a Pakeha fifteen, supplies an index to the Maori character that will place the reputation of New Zealand’s native race oil a high peak when the British visitors return to the Homeland and tell the tale of tlieir wanderings. And when that tale turns to discussion of the men who lost and won the burden of it will be that, in far-off New Zealand, the Maori is proudly holding his own.