TAX INCREASES.

Wairarapa Age, 6 August 1930, Page 5

TAX INCREASES.

REFORM MEMBER SUGGESTS ANOTHER WAY. MAKING USE OF POST OFFICE PROFITS. TRANSFER TO CONSOLIDATED' FUND. (By Telegraph.—The Age Special.) WELLINGTON, August 5. Claiming that a minority Government should not make drastic changes in the fiscal system without an appeal to the country, Mr, D» Jones (Mid-Canterbury), pointed out in the House to-day that last year a part of the Post and Telegraph Department’s surplus could have been transferred to the Consolidated Fund and there would have ben no deficit this year. There was a £500,000 surplus in the Post Office account. Why raid the ratepayers and taxpayers instead of using the money in the Government’s actual possession? he asked. In a private- business, departments which paid and those with losses were put into the same balance sheet, but the Government’s policy asked the country to find out of revenue all the monies required for departments that did not pay, such as railways,’ and charge the deficiency to the Consolidated Fund, but did not eredifthe Consolidated Fund with the huge surplus from the Post Office account. “The Prime Minister attempted to justify it recently by stating that they must have these reserves and indicated that away in 1940 certain things will be required. The Government’s practice does not support its policy. They are now charging many things to the Post Office that should not be charged—the new steamer service on the: Bluff-Mel-bourne route is an example of this. This is admission of the soundness of my argument. ■ Under the Government's present action, if postage was increased from Id to IJd or 2d, this revenue would not come into the general, revenue, but would remain in the reserves of the Post Office, unless we passed an Act to make certain of it. This clearly indicates how uhsound is this method of finance. The capital of the Post Office is about £10,000,009. It has a depreciation account of £3,000,000. In addition to this, the Post and Telegraph balance sheet indicates very clearly that considerable maintenance charges are paid out of ordinary revenue. How can the Government justify bleeding the country white with taxation instead of using what is really annual revenue. The Post Office is a monopoly and for this monopoly the State is entitled to receive handsome profits from the business. I say definitely that in times like these, to take the shirts off the backs of the workers and producers of the Dominion, increasing unemployment and creating pessimism of a most damaging kind while the Post Office piles up its reserves and we pay the'loss on other departments, is a policy that this House should not tolerate.” Mr. Jones attributed the increased taxation partly to unemployment, and partly to railway losses. He sympathised with the i Government over the unemployment problem, “the only expanding industry I the Government hes got.” (Laughter.)