A MILLION OF EXTRA TAXATION

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2687, 5 February 1916, Page 4

A MILLION OF EXTRA TAXATION

The Minister of Finance to-day announces that for the ten months of the current financial year so far elapsed the revenue of the country shows an increase of nearly one million pounds ; Naturally the Minister views this with satisfaction, and the country may well do the same. But how has this huge increase _ come. about 1 .What -have our' Socialist friends, who shut their eyes to plain facts and talk so much airy nonsense, got to say about it? They, shout for the conscription of wealth: here the.y -have it. This extra million on top of the the other millions of revenue collected by the State is mainly composed of taxation taken more or less ' directly from the pockets of the well-to-do. It is mainly taken 'for purposes arising oat of the war. How much of it is directly due to the new war taxes Sir Joseph Ward has not yet told us, but the State has been conscripting the wealth of the community to just such an extent as is necessary to meet its obligations. Should the new war taxes prove insufficient to meet requirements, then the Government, as representing the State, will add more taxes and . compulsorily take more from those who are iii a positira to pay. Conscription plain and simple. It is very satisfactory to know that the existing- taxes have resulted in sir substantial an in-' crease, for it. holds out hopes that with reasonable economy in administrative expenditure there will not be necessity for any startling additions to our taxation during the coming year. The cost of the war, however, goes on piling up, and the end is not in sight. Moreover, there is one- thing the Government must face which means increased expenditure: and'that is the placing.of the War Pensions Act on a more liberal footing. If the extra ■ million will not meet all requirements, then the country is well able to bear an added burden. _ New Zealand is very prosperous in spite of, or partly because of, the war.