VANISHING ILLUSIONS.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 73, 13 April 1937, Page 4

VANISHING ILLUSIONS.

The address delivered last night at Hastings by Mr H. G. Dickie, M.P. for Patea, consisted mainly in a review of I the Labour Government's legislation and administration j duripg the sixteen months it has been in office. He was able to bring out a good few salient points npon which the community is in much jieed of enlightenment, but necessarily the limited time at command forbade any attempt at traversing the whole wide field that lies open for discussion. Heavy taxation is generally recognised as being one of the chief deterrents to the industrial expansion that provide? remunerative employment. At election time Labour leaders themselves ntade very much of thig, with a lot of incidental criticism of previous Governments for imposing it. In fact, it was said that in this country the load of taxation had reached its bearable limit and that* Labour, if placed in power, would see that it was in no way increased. That was a very J. definite promise. But in his very first Budget our new MilU^ter of Finance cast his figures for the collection of some ^4^ millipn more of taxation than had been gathered by his I imroBdiate predecessor in his last year of office. This, too, had nothing' to say of an extra half-million of special unenvI ploymeiit taxation, of which a quite appreciable proportion is being liberally distributed with the result of keeping in comfortabJe idleness a very considerable number Avhose last desire it is to find employment. On this question of taxation a specific pledge was given that the Saies Tax that had been imposed as an emerge lcy mcasure during the depression would be forthwith abolished, Bnt tLe Saies Tax, which touches the pocket of every member j of the community, is still with us, and for the financial year | just ended, took some three-quarters of a million more than the previOPS year out of those ppckets. Then it was alsp said that the artificial "exchange" rate, which greatly increases the cost of all requirements drawn from abroad, would also be abolished. But the exchange rate still stands where it was and, with a largely increased volume of imports, means a very much heavier burden than ever before upon the community. Both the Saies Tax and the "pegged'' exchange were designed to meet the exigencies of bad, times, but, for all the cry we hear of the prosperity which a Labour Administratipn claims to have brought to us, they still persist. With neither the one nor the other can the new Government dispense aaid still carry on with its present policy of lavish expenditure. Then Labour orators were loud in declaring that the National Debt had also reached its beax'able lirnit and that there must be no additions rnade to it. But, in the fa.ce of this, Mr, Nash quite unashamedly told us jn his first Budget that he wa^s going to borrow a cool £(Lmillion for publie works, but kept and is still keeping a profound secret the sourqes from whigh it was to be and has been borrowed. Of that $6-miJlion a large? probably the greater, part is being spent on projects that will never make any return adequate to pay interest on expenditure. Then. too, as Mr. Dickie pointed out, a hig "floating" debt is being created of which "the public are being told nothing, but of which a very great part will eventually have to be added to the permafrient debt. Thege are just a few examples of the /Hvizardry" brought to bear upon our national fjnauce by a Governmeut wfeose leaders professed to have up their sleeves the philisopher's stoue that was to provide out of "costless credit" all the funds requisite for carrying out their philanthropic ideals. /All the bi'ight visions they raised pf an entirely new financial sygjtem that would give us all we want without costing us aaiythiug are being very rudely dispelled by recourses that liave no spjca of novelty in them.' Frpin aU we were told some eighteen months ago, before our votes were cast, we were surely entitled to expect something different from greatly increased taxation and further substantial borrowing as an introduction to the Golden Age of Labour rule. Nor have our Labour leaders, as yet at any rate, given the least indication as to how the added burdens they themselves have 'declared intolerable but are yet imposing upon industry and commerce are to be carried, Nothing that it has done has added one penny piece to the national iUQome from which. taxation and interest on loans have to be paid, Rather, indeed, has it by galling restrietions and regtraints, with continual indefinite threats of more to follow, done a very great deal to check the industrial wage-paying activity and progress that improved world conditions would qtherwise have warranted.