LABOUR FINANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 236, 5 October 1928, Page 6

LABOUR FINANCE.

When Mr. Snowden held the responsible position of Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Ministry, his financial ability and the cautions and moderate character of his policy produced a favourable impression even upon hostile critics. What he has said at the Labour Conference on the subject of taxation will no doubt commend itself to the majority of fiscal experts. For economic opinion to-day generally speaking supports Mr. Snowden's views on the income tax and the manner in which it should be levied. It can hardly be denied that direct taxation is more equitable than indirect, because it can be graduated with due regard to the resources and the financial capacity of the taxpayer. An indirect tax paid on commodities through their enhanced price is not open to exemption or graduation, and, being uniform in amount, it presses much more heavily on the poor than on the rich. As to differentiation, it should be understood that in Britain, as in this country, unearned incomes are already taxed more heavily than earned incomes, and justly so. But Mr. Snowden would furtljpr differentiate between unearned incomes derived from inherited wealth and incomes due to the investment of capital saved from expenditure; and economists generally admit the value of this distinction in any equitably constructed scheme ot fiscal potior