The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 1930. ECONOMY OR TAXATION?

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19107, 27 June 1930, Page 8

The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd.

FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 1930. ECONOMY OR TAXATION?

Gloucester Street and Cathedral Square CHRISTCHURCH NEW ZEALAND. London Representatives * R. B. BRETT & SON 34. NEW BRIDGE ST.. LONDON, E.C.4.

* I a HE POINTS worth noting in the Governor-General’s speech, as far as they are a forecast of legislation or policy, inay be summarised as follows: Drastic departmental and other economies. “ Some increases ” in taxation. More liberal facilities for land settlement. Railway economy and transport rationalisation. A sharp cut in the vote for land defence. A doubled subsidy on unemployment relief. A measure for the relief of unemployment. More liberal workers’ compensation. Mr Forbes has too big a job on hand to waste time in window-dressing. The depression of a trade cycle is not a thing to be talked away. It will pass, and it will assuredly be followed by a period of prosperity, but budgets must be balanced, and Mr Forbes hopes to do so with a minimum of extra taxation. It is unfortunate for him that sectional interests should be trying to open up matters of such wide significance as the de-rating of country lands, and the complete remodelling of highways finance, but if he is well advised he will ignore these agitations, and concentrate, without panic, on the financial embarrassments that have been left to him partly as a legacy of Reform extravagance and mismanagement, and partly owing to world movements in the money market for which no party in any country can be held responsible. There is general disposition in the Labour ranks to give Mr Forbes a chance to prove his ability, and his friends are not fearful of the result. A HUMBLE IDEALIST. npHE DEATH of Mr F. R. Cooke removes a picturesque and quixotic figure from the public life of Christchurch. In the pursuit of Socialistic ideals, which some of his own comrades had come to regard as impracticable or unattainable, Mr Cooke went serenely and cheerfully on his way, with just enough of the Olympian spirit to save him from a surrender to political compromise, and to fortify him against derisive attacks on his idealism. Mr Cooke had the reward in his lifetime of gaining the gradual respect of his opponents, both on the political platform—which in his case he would have preferred to call the soap-box—and in the activities of civic management. He never diluted his doctrines, and, in consequence, he enjoyed the unshaken confidence of his own followers, and the respect of his opponents. WHO IS TO BLAME? POLITICIANS have certainly ordered new railways that have had no chance of paying, as Mr H. D. Acland says, but the greatest offenders have been his own political friends, and the first thing Sir Joseph Ward did on taking office was to discontinue desperately extravagant railway expenditure that had been authorised by Mr Coates. But that is not the whole story. Standards of demand change more rapidly than standards of supply, and large capital investments in older systems of transport have to be paid off in one way or another. Moreover, the railway system and even the tramway systems of New Zealand are still monopolistic in outlook, and that fact operates against the realisation of economies. The lack of any economic driving force, indeed, must always deprive such systems of the alert, vigorous tone of a competitive system. If the Railway Commission does its work thoroughly, New Zealand may be staggered at the over-staffing of the Department. A meeting of workshops employees asks the Minister of Railways to take notice of the enormous increase in the official clerical positions that have been created since pre-war days, and if he is wise he will do so. It should be recognised, meanwhile, by all critics of the Government, either in the railway service or on the political platform, that a serious effort is being made to reduce the Department to a business-like competitive basis. But it is useless to talk of selling out to private companies.