The Waikato Times. TUESDAY, 22 OCTOBER, 1940. ATTACK UPON “ WEALTH ”

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21250, 22 October 1940, Page 4

The Waikato Times. TUESDAY, 22 OCTOBER, 1940. ATTACK UPON “ WEALTH ”

Statements reported to have been made by the Hon. P. C. Webb to \\ est Coast coal miners will cause a painful impression throughout the country. At such a time the Minister could have been expected to encourage unity among all sections of the community rather than to make statements which are certain to inflame class feeling. Perhaps when one is in Rome one is inclined to do what Rome does, but a Minister of the Crown has a muth wider responsibility than to make statements calculated to please his immediate audience. He left the inevitable impression that what he described as wealthy people were to receive very severe treatment at the hands of the Government, as though the possession of wealth were a sin and the wealth of no value to the country.

“ When we win this war,” Mr Webb is reported to have said, the capitalist will be as dead as Julius Caesar and the wealthy people will have played their last card. The Government of this country has been placed in a position which was never dreamed of a year or so ago, and it is going to face its responsibilities.” A judicious speaker, even on such an occasion, would have remembered that one of the first responsibilities of any Government during a war emergency especially, is not to pander to class feeling. Another cardinal responsibility is to ensure that all sections of the people receive complete justice. The present Government’s position was dreamed of years ago and its position and responsibility do not differ materially from those of other governments which have had their day and gone.

Mr Webb is on perfectly safe ground when he declares he will give the working people the justice to which they are entitled. He can even claim credit for improving their position, as other Ministers have done. He will be applauded for endeavouring to improve their lot still further, but he must be very careful in doing so that he is not unjust to those people whom he does not choose to regard as workers. As a matter of fact there are very few people in New Zealand who have not a perfect right to claim the honourable appellation of “ worker,” and who are not proud of the fact. At the present time not a few of these are working overtime for the Government, which is reaping the greater part of the profits of their work.

Conscription of wealth would be most severe, the Minister told his audience, and from legislation to be introduced he could see some big companies being taxed to the limit of their resources. One big company in the Waikato recently showed that while it made 23s for its shareholders it provided the Government with 43s in taxation. And the greater part of that taxation is not for war but for civil purposes. What is to become of the thousands of workers who draw their living from such organisations if continually increasing taxation is to render their functioning impossible ? And who is to perform their services to the public ? There is danger of doing harm to the working people as well as to those whom the Minister calls wealthy.