WAR PROFITS.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 June 1916, Page 8

WAR PROFITS.

CONFLICTING VIEWS. ' (From Our Special Correspondent)'. • Wellington, June 3. A good deal of amusement was occasioned in the House on Wednesday night by & strange conflict of opinion between the member for Rangitikei and the member for Stratford in regard to war profits. These twin brothers in pessimism are usually agreed that the world in general and its politics in particular are going to the dogs as rapidly as the Socialists and Single-taxers and Fair Renters can oarry them, but on this occasion they differed widely and a simple problem which a dozen members on either side of the House were ready to solve with a stroke of the pen. Mr. Newman was not sure that the lilies would win the war. They might, and they might not. No one could tell. But if they did not win, it would be worse tor New Zealand.than it would be for the Mother Country. Therefore war profits should be taxed—mora and more and more. They were being taxed already, but not enough. No man should make a profit out of the war; any man that did was scarcely a man; certainly .not a patriot. War profits belonged to the country, and to the country they should go. Mr. Hine, as became an officer in uniform, who had obtained special leave, as he explained, to help the Military Service Bill through the House, took a less gloomy view of ilie war than the one lii 3 lugubrious brother from .Rangitikei liad expressed; but he scoffed ai the idea of taxing war profits. There fl»re nope, be declared, to tax. There migfut have been large profits last year when prices went up with a jump, but there were none now. The big prices were the normal prices—fixed values belonging to the farmer and the producer just is much as did the value of his land and bis stock. K was strange logic, stranger economics and still more extraordinary views for a gentleman who barely a year ago was regarded as the Hon. James Allen's .mder-study in the role of Minister of Finance.' And yet a listless House simply laughed at'the neighbor's little quarrel and said never a word to help them out of their trouble