The Timaru Herald. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1930. INCREASING THE BURDEN.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18491, 5 February 1930, Page 8

The Timaru Herald. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1930. INCREASING THE BURDEN.

In face of the failure of the United Government to stabilise the finances of the country, ease prevailing monetary conditions, reduce the burdens of taxation, provide millions upon millions of cheap money for all and sundry, and generally create such implicit confidence in business and industrial spheres that would give New Zealand an abounding wave of perpetual prosperity, it is not surprising that the most boastful, self-satisfied group of politicians that ever scrambled on to the Treasury benches has been forced into silence. Even the Parliamentary members of the Labour Party are beginning to take stock of their position, in view of the fact that their alliance with the hopelessly inefficient United Cabinet (representing a disunited party), has placed on Labour a share of the responsibility for the political gins of omission and commission committed by the Party now in office, but held in power by tlieir co-partners in the sorry failure, the Party led by Mr Holland. For years, the Labour Party attacked every Administration with the issue of the custoins returns, which constituted they said, a heavy burden on the shoulders of every breadwinner. It was a fundamentally unsound political principle, so Mr Holland glibly stated, to use the tariff to collect revenue! We wonder what Mr Holland and his inconsistent colleagues think of the latest statement of the public accounts issued by the Prime Minister, Having digested the official figures, will Mr Holland and his Socialistic comrades swallow their ' principles and remain silent in face of the announcement that in nine months the State purse was swelled by the collection through the tariff, of the enormous sum of £6,764,959, an increase in nine months in customs revenue of £866,832? Will the exigencies of Party politics force silence on the Socialists who have repeatedly denounced the “unjust taxation of the workers through the customs” as the most iniquitous form of taxation? The irony of the whole business is that the rank and file of the United Party, and the whole of the Parliamentary Labour Party, were fooled into believing that the country would not be able to honour its accounts if a heavier toll was not exacted from all sections of the community through the customs tariff. They were told that “there is no justification for the statements that the customs will produce considerably more revenue than was allowed for in the Budget.” The poor dumb rank and file of the United Party, who are never consulted about anything but are simply ignored, except where their votes are required, simply danced to Suit the pipers; but the Labour Party swallowed the whole story, line, hooks and sinker, together with their so-called principles, and a heavier burden was levied on the people through the customs which now yields nearly seven millions in nine months, although they had from almost every platform denounced the iniquity of increased revenue collected through the customs, when a very much smaller revenue ' from that source was drawn annually into the public purse. The failure of the United Government to enunciate a sound policy of finance, is likely to hamper the whole country in facing adverse economic conditions. Incapacity to honour the promise to reduce taxation was bad enough, but the utter collapse of Sir Joseph Ward’s loan-raising scheme, at a time when, according to his own statements, the “country had not enough money by millions,” should have steadied the new Administration’s scatter-ease policy. But not so! The Government has actually proceeded merrily with its spending policy, and we the spectacle of a Cabinet, plainly hampered for lack of funds, actually embarking on risky railway construction works, while engaged in the financially-unsound scheme of entering into fierce competition in the local money market for funds, for which the high rate of interest of 5£ per cent, is being offered. Tens of millions were to be raised at 4| per cent., and scattered broadcast at 4f per cent. But how much of that promise has been redeemed? The inevitable, of course, has happened. Since the Government finds itself incapable of steadying itself in its raids on the pockets of the people, the Banks have been compelled to take a stand and the overdraft rate has been forced up in consequence of the Government’s operations in the local money market. It will be interesting to note what the apologists for the new Government will have to say in defence of the United Cabinet" (in view of its promise to reduce taxation) for having taken an extra million in taxation out of the pockets of the people in nine months, and its hopelessly inefficient financial policy which has completely upset the economic situation in New Zealand sorely hampered business developments, and forced up interest rates to the detriment of every member of the community.