RECEPTION OF BUDGET

Taranaki Daily News, 6 August 1929, Page 7

RECEPTION OF BUDGET

PRESS CRITICISMS. Commenting on the Budget proposals, the Christchurch Press says:—‘‘The only proposal affecting everybody, though it does not, of course, affect all equally, is the doubling of the primage duty on all imports. The Government’s other proposals are directly wholly against farmers.. The truth is that it makes the burden a class burden exclusively. If it is necessary to increase taxation the burden should be distributed over the whole community, if only because the whole community will then be made to realise the necessity of public economy, but it has not been established that an increase in taxation is necessary. . . . The Prime Minister blames motor transport for the decline in passenger revenue, and gives a clear indication that very substantial handicaps are to be applied to motor transport services for the purpose of giving the railways a better monopoly of the passenger business. If is, of course, utterly wrong that the Government should assume the right to impede or extinguish the development of modern motor transport in order that the State railways bearing most of the weaknesses of State enterprises should be freed from legitimate competition. Sir Joseph Ward’s suggestion* that public expenditure should be withheld from highways near railways is quite amazing, and indicates a strange disregard for the rights and welfare of all except the Railway Department.” The Christchurch Times says: “The Budget as a whole is the most interesting 'and probably . the most provocative we have had for the past thirty years. Apart from the strictly War Budgets it proves that Sir Joseph Ward retains the quick mind and courage of his younger days, for it needed courage to introduce such a Budget in a House so evenly divided among the three parties. Its reception in Parliament is likely to be more friendly than otherwise because the critics would be hard put to it to devise fairer means of • raising the necessary new taxation, and none of them will be anxious to figure as an opponent of progressive land settlement. The outstanding feature of the Budget is, of course, the new land settlement policy of the Government. The boldness of the proposals recalls the big days of the nineties of last centure when the Liberal land settlement policy was the subject of unprecedented bitterness in Parliament and of unrestrained recrimination in all the organs of Conservatism. Like every other’ addition to taxation the scheme is open to criticism, but one’s first impression is that the Prime Minister is placing the burden where it is least likely to disturb the economic conditions.”

The Otago Daily Times discusses 'Sir Joseph Ward’s Budget editorially under three headings, the Financial Statement, the borrowing policy, and the ' State railways. Speaking of the Finance Minister’s proposals to balance the Budget, it says: “It is very probable that there are a number of landowners who escaped over-lightly under the system of taxation that has recently been in force, and in that case a readjustment of the incidence -so that they may bear a larger share of the burden of taxation is hot only not unjust, but is also reasonable.” Dealing with Sir Joseph Ward’s references to the £7,000,000 loan raised in January, the Times says: “The Budget announcement amounts, it will be seen, to an admission of the misleading character of certain electoral propaganda.” Commenting on the railway proposals, the newspaper- says: “The proposal to spend ten millions of money upon the construction by an enormously costly method of lines that will never under existing conditions secure traffic sufficient to meet the interest on the capital cost is so remarkable as to be explicable only on grounds of present political expediency.” The Evening Star, commenting on the ! Government’s land policy, says: “Sir Joseph Ward’s strong faith in closer settlement is exhilarating after the obstacles that have been declared prohibitive to that policy in recent years. His arguments are surely unchallenged,. and the policy laid down bears a sufficient resemblance to that which Labour has set forth to suggest that it will not meet with any insuperable obstacles from Parliament.” The Auckland Star says:—“Sir Joseph Ward’s first Budget after his return to office is one of the most important of recent years. Admirably compiled and lucidly worded, it presents a most valuable analysis of the financial situation, gives the public a clear idea of how the country stands, and faces courageously the difficulties of the time. Its proposals to increase taxation (especially proposed increase in land tax), to promote land settlement, to push on railway construction, to write off eight millions of railway capital, to consider the closing down of branch lines and to study the whole question of railway and motor competition, mark this Budget as . a document of quite exceptional significance. There will, of course, be disappointment at the announcement that taxation is to be increased and not reduced, but previous statements of the Prime Minister had prepared the country for this news. Nothing would have pleased Sir Joseph Ward better than to reduce taxation, but he inherited a deficit and he has to balance his Budget. In defence of his proposals, he explains that the charges on the taxpayer are largely rigid and that scope for administrative economy is very much smaller than is popularly supposed. That may be so, but the country will certainly expect thp Government to explore every possibility of economy. Seven months has not been sufficient for a thorough overhaul of the expenditure.” The Auckland Sun says:—“There is an Irish saying from other days that the devil after shearing the pig observed that there was mighty little wool for so much squealing. This satanic simile might well be applied to the first Budget of Sir Joseph Ward as supreme Minister in a meagre and immature United Government, and if the metaphor be pursued only a little farther it can be said fairly that the latest political shearing process has yielded nothing better than bristles. It is impossible to find any cause for congratulation or commendation. There are Hawn in all the Budget proposals, until the whole things looks like a South Island road riven by big earthquake cracks, depressions, upheavals. Such is Sir Joseph Ward’s attempt at fulfilling his wild promise to make the Dominion not only safe for New Zealanders but riiore attractive than ever for thousands of immigrants and a multitude of small farmers. The Prime Minister has reversed an old couplet to make it read: ‘The things he vowed he would get done are the things he cannot do’—a pathetic anti-climax'!”