BURDEN OF TAXATION

Waikato Times, Volume 94, Issue 14772, 11 October 1921, Page 5

BURDEN OF TAXATION

PRODUCERS OVERLOADED DEMAND FOR RETRENCHf/IENT. AN OVERGROWN CIVIL SERVICE. (Bv Telccranli. —Press Association). WELLINGTON, Monday. The necessity for Ihc Government to introduce without delay a system f

drastic retrenchment in the Civil Service in order to effect a reduction in taxation, was urged by Captain F. R Colbcck, vice-president of Hie New Zealand Farmers’ Union, at a'meeting of (he Dominion Executive of Hie Union. Ho said Hie Railway Department’s idea of retrenchment was to cut down the service; that was not Hie way to' retrench —it was Hie way to lose more money. Not only must the Civil Service take its share in the sacrifice, but everyone else must also. Only one or two branches of the farming industry were paying anything at all, hut the cost of running the industry had not decreased one iota. The sheep farmer was getting nothing, and the bCef farmer’s calling was gone. The Civil Service was overgrown.

Mr W. ,T- Poison, president, quoted figures compiled by the taxpayers’ association showing the increases thathad taken place in Government depart • mcnls. If was time (here was a derided scare in Hie Dominion. The country did not appear to realise the situation, which was desperate so far as Ihe large majority of Ihc producers were concerned. Many farmers simply could not pay Ihe taxation; they must have a reduction and retrenchment. Tiie following resolution was carried: “That Ihc executive of the New Zealand Union urge that* owing to the difficult times through which we are passing, it is essential that, taxation should he reduced, and as this cannot be done without reducing the cost of administration drastic retrenchment must he made in departmental expenditure and that civil servants he asked to share in the general sacrifice.”