THE DOMINION’S NEEDS

Taranaki Daily News, 28 April 1930, Page 12

THE DOMINION’S NEEDS

REVIEW OF PUBLIC POLICY

CONDITIONS OF RELIEF WORKERS.

LAND SETTLEMENT & TAXATION

• (Special to News.) Invercargill, Last Night.

Discussing the relation between expenditure and taxation at Invercargill on Saturday evening, Mr. W. J. Polson, M.P., pointed out that the Government owed £204,000,000 and local bodies £60,000,000, of which some £8,000,000 was borrowed from the Government. Hence the total indebtedness of New Zealand- was £324,000,000, equal to £214 9s. Od. per head of population, man, woman and child, or over £lOOO for a family of five people. “Surely,” said Mr. Polson, “with falling prices and heavy interest commitments abroad it is necessary to increase production and curtail expenditure.” While not blaming the present Government more than any previous Government, he severely criticised the South Island railway expenditure proposals, saying they meant a programme that would be a sheer waste of money, and which would involve £15,000,000. The country to be railed would never such a colossal expenditure, and in any case, who could say what the next 25 years would bring forth? The future of transport might then be via the air. Already New Zealand had railway losses approximating £2,000,000 a year, indicating that the railways were one form of national expenditure that must be controlled. UNECONOMICAL WORKS.

Mr. Polson went on to refer to uneconomic “barrow” road work as illustrating public wastefulness, and made the statement that while married men with dependents were entitled to a wage that would enable them to live in reasonable decency, single men without dependents were not entitled to the same consideration. Fourteen shillings a day for single men on relief work could not be justified under present circumstances, and should be stopped. He knew the Government was doing its best to establish the contract system, but many men were still p rely on day work and some were not earning their day’s pay. He gave instances. Mr. Polson contended that there must be some effort on the part of labour to earn its wages. Families could not be left to starve, but men who would not work deserved to starve.

FAULTS OF SETTLEMENT POLICY.

Mr. Polson gave the Government credit for being anxious to promote land settlement, but urged that the land tax legislation of last session was one of the worst blunders it had made, and was likely to retard instead of foster land settlement. New Zealand had been built on credit, and men of enterprise and push who were prepared to mortgage what they had in order to go ahead deserved encouragement. To tax them on their debts was to deal a blow to progress, and was thoroughly unsound. lie would remove all taxes from mortgages, but would provide reasonable safeguards against abuse. He believed in breaking up large estates where economically sound, but penal taxation did not always achieve the best results. A graduated income tax, based on ability to pay, should be the test. It was sound and just. Great Britain, Argentina, South Africa and Canada had no land tax at all, but New Zeland, 12,000 miles from its chief market, still maintained this added handicap. The result was deflated land values. ‘“Show me a country where land values ' are high and I will show you a country that is prosperous,” he said. Where the farmer had an asset to pledge, development could proceed and stagnation and drift to cities would not take place. LEGISLATION NOT POPULAR. The land taxation legislation of last session, he said, must be repealed or drastically amended. Closer settlement was essential and scnstituted one of New Zealand’s most important problems, especially as there was a lot of land still to be opened up. In his opinion, it was better for the Government to proceed vigorously with opening up new lands instead of spending a lot of money on estates already developed, It seemed unwise to take a good farmer off expensive land to settle recruits on it. In any case, the money expended in this direction could better be spent on roading and assisting production on virgin lands. It was a sound policy to carry out a roading scheme, because much land deterioration was due to absence of access and high costs in consequence, although some was due to dear money and hesitation to lend on such security. The new Land Development Board created last session was a step in the right direction, said Mr. Polson. He claimed it was a better board .as a result of his amendment to the Bill for the i Jusion of a practical farmer in the personnel. LAND DEVELOPMENT BOARD. Nevertheless the board as constituted had not sufficient powers. He would give it authority to classify land and provide rigid conditions for working. The board should also have the right to say whether deteriorated lands should be regenerated or abandoned, and if the former, how the work should be done. The board should also say what assistance a settier should receive in remissions, grants or aids, and what obligation should be imposed on him. Its operations ■' should not be confined to Crown. danda, ■ ■

The speaker proceeded to deal with the burden of rates on country land. The existing system, he said, required reviewing because motor-cars had made traffic national, and not local, as of old. The very fact that a petrol tax bad been imposed indicated recognition that traffic had now become national. England, Ireland, Argentina and Wisconsin (U.S.A.) had derated all farm lands, but in New Zealand rates had climbed until they were 21 times pre-war figures. Moreover, nearly 50 per cent, of cars were owned by farmers, and among the rest a large proportion of benzine was used on services for which the farmer paid. As a result the farmer was, not only paying heavy rates, but the bulk of the petrol tax as well. Mr. Polson said he would reconstitute the counties under unified control, enlarging the areas in their charge and spread petrol taxation 1 ‘over all roads

except those rightly classified as developmental, .which should be a direct charge on the Consolidated Fund.