The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 228, 26 September 1929, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistanoi t For the future in the distance, And the good that u>e can do.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1929, THE LAND TAX DEBATE.

Sir Joseph Ward may fairly be congratulated on his able presentation of his taxation proposals to the House, and his effective reply to the attacks of the Opposition. The Prime Minister showed that as a result of the modification in the mortgage exemption level that he has now made, the number of taxpayers affected would be 1800 instead of 4500; and that in regard to the modified supertax the number affected would be 1450 instead of 1750. Further, provision is to be made for a hardship clause, and the landowners who have valid grounds for objection can get relief either by appeals to the Assessment Court or the Valuer-General. The Prime Minister showed clearly that he had made substantial concessions to his critics, and that therefore "the plea for the postponement of the Bill could no longer be put forward as a reasonable request."

But an Opposition which is searching anxiously for missiles to hurl at a Government is seldom reasonable, and the type of criticism to which the Bill has been subjected is very much what might be expected under the circumstances. The Prime Minister remarked ironically that he is "fully cognisant of the distasteful nature of an increase in taxation to those whom it affects"; but the fact that nobody likes to pay taxes is no excuse for the absurdly unjust misrepresentation in which the opponents of this measure have systematically indulged. An attempt has been made to work up an impassioned agitation against the Bill on the plea that it will bring ruin and disaster upon our'primary producers, though, as the Prime Minister showed yesterday, the total number of farmers affected by the Bill in its present form is only 2400.

But Sir Joseph Ward has had to combat an even more insidious form of misrepresentation than this. He has been charged with attempting to justify an otherwise indefensible Bill on the ground that it will affect only a small group of people, and that therefore their interests can safely be ignored. We regret to observe that even the Hon. W. D. Stewart, who is usually a fair fighter, has resorted to this grotesque distortion of the Prime Minister's words as an excuse for attacking the Bill. Sir Joseph Ward has never attempted to justify his proposals on these grounds, and his reference to the small number of farmers and taxpayers affected was a perfectly legitimate answer to the monstrous exaggerations of the Reformers, who tell us that the Bill is dooming the whole farming community to desolation and destruction.

An, even more palpable and reprehensible form of misrepresentation has been resorted to by the "New Zealand Herald," which charges the Prime Minister with introducing "retrospective legislation" to penalise a special class of taxpayers. When the Commissioner of Taxes calls up arrears of unpaid taxation he cannot be accused of this offence, and that is precisely the Prime Minister's position. P]ven the "New Zealand Herald" admits that farming income has not been taxed since 1923, and the taxpayers have thus been exempted from this burden for six years at least. There is no reason why they should escape this reasonable impost any longer; and the fact that 1450 rural landowners will have to pay £300,000 in supertax is simply a measure of the generosity with which the Reform Government treated them and the magnitude of the immunity that hey have enjoyed.

But it is quite futile to endeavour to extract any logical or coherent argument against the Bill from the confused declamation of its opponents. The general principles on which this measure is based are undoubtedly sound. Critics so different in their standpoint as the Hon. W. D. Stewart and Mr. Poison admitted yesterday the necessity for breaking up large estates and cheeking land aggregation and promoting closer settlement. The United Government is attempting to do all these things, and at the same time it is trying by perfectly reasonable means to raise revenue from a body of landowners who, as Sir Joseph Ward put it yesterday, were permitted by the Eeform Government to escape their legitimate contribution towards the national income. The "Christchurch Press" declares that substantial amendments are "as necessary to check this devastating piece of legislation as are collar and chain to a mad dog." But the Prime Minister, who remembers the frenzied outcries of the Conservative Press against the SeddonMcKenzie legislation of the "nineties," will not be deterred by hysterical ravings of this sort from doing his duty to the Dominion.