Trades Conference Speaks.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 417, 16 May 1902, Page 1

Trades Conference Speaks.

TAXATION FOR THE OTHER FELLOW. (Wellington Lance).. The Trades and Labor Councils’ Conference lost no time in manifesting its breadth of view and unselfishness of purpose. After electing a chairman and secretary it straightway proceeded to shape an improved fiscal policy for the colony. Mr Naughton, who is presumably the gentleman that holds a billet in the Government bookbinding department, and has also been acting as President of the Wellington Trades and Labour Council, rushed down with a motion to increase the land tax, abolish the exemption, and at the same time correspondingly reduce the duties on the necessaries of life. In other words he was going to play the good old game of “beggar my Neighbour” for all it was worth.

It is this sort of greedy squint-eyed spirit which disgusts so many people with the trades unionist leaders. They seem utterly incapable of looking at public questions from any other point than their own. And they appear to consider that the burdens oh government must be piled up on all other backs but Mr Naughton’s proposal was the quintessence of selfishness. It would hit, in a double sense, the hardest grafter in this colony—the poor struggling backblocks settler, who toils from early dawn to bedtime, amid all sorts of privations, for a tax exemption would at once bring bare subsistence. To abolish the land under the incidence of the tax, and to increase the tax itself would make unwelcome inroads upon his already slender revenue; .... And what .is the object of this innovation ? To enable the privileged artisan of the big towns, who works no more than eight hours a day, enjoys a half holiday on Saturdays, whose wages are regular and defined by Arbitration Court award, and who shares all the privileges and conveniences of urban life, to escape his proper modicum of Customs taxation, and let his country brother pay up for him. However, the Conference wasn’t quite ripe for Mr Naughton’s artless little proposal. It adopted instead an amendment in favour of an increase of the land and income tax, and a coincident reduction of the duties on those necessities of life which cannot be produced in the colony. There is a variation of terms and a difference of degree, but the animating principle of both proposals is the same. That principle is pure selfishness. There is no use mincing phrases. The trades unionists want to share all the privileges of the country without contributing to the expense-. That is the plain English of it-. , . If the land and income tax is to be increased so as to cheapen the duties on the necessities of life, then let the burden be fairly adjusted to the shoulders of the community. At present 6d in the £ income tax is levied upon all incomes over £3OO. It is a very substantial impost. If there is to be equality of sacrifice why not have a sliding scale, and levy, say 3d m the £ on incomes between £2OO and £3OO £2O, and make a commensurate reduction in the necessaries of life ? But ction in the necessaries of life T But these large-minded and big-souled unionists only believe in direct taxation for the other fellow. They are to be dead-headed in this happy country while somebody else faces the music and pays the piper. That is the meaning of it. So far their resolutions have not the force of law. if they did New Zealand would be a firstclass place to get out of;