CORRESPONDENCE UNEMPLOYMENT AND TAXES.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 July 1930, Page 12

CORRESPONDENCE

UNEMPLOYMENT AND TAXES.

(To the Editor.) Sir,--It is to be seen by the papers that New Zealand is faced with the solving of an unemployment problem. This is a condition of affairs peculiar not only to New Zealand but to the whole world, which is still in the grip of a deflation crisis consequent upon the inflated values caused by the Great War. All countries are seeking a remedy. In New Zealand Parliament has at present before it an Unemployment Insurance Bill, which, if passed, will be a big step towards Socialism —that delightful idea of things in which all the good things are shared equally. It is proposed that everyone over 20 shall pay 30 s. per annum, that the local bodies shall contribute a certain percentage, and that so much shall be taken out of the Consolidated Fund. Well, I don’t give the Commission that was set up to consider the unemployment question much credit for the ideas it brought forward for raising the necessary money. The Bill now before Parliament if passed in anything like its present form will be a tax and a burden on the thrifty workers of the country for the benefit of the thriftless.

Now, why, not tax thriftlessness, instead of thrift? Two of the principal methods that people have of wasting their money are drinking and gambling. About one and a half millions are required. Well, the Government at present raises about £600,000 in beer tax, representing about l|d. on every pint drunk, If the Government put 3d. a pint more tax on beer it would raise £1,200,000, and who would feel the burden? Next, what about the totalisator taxes. The Government at present takes per cent, of investments, representing a sum of £533,000. That could quite easily be doubled without affecting anyone, and so, with an increased beei’ tax as well, the whole money for th.; relief of unemploymentcould be raised without being a burden on industry. New Zealand, a country of only a million odd inhabitants, can afford to drink 13,400,000 gallons of beer in a year and put £7,000,000 on the totalisator. Here are two money streams that are certainly not dried up. Why does not the Government attempt to tap these streams, instead of draining the storage tanks of industry.—l am, A.E.W. July 22, 1930.