PARLIAMENT RESUMES.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 199, 8 September 1937, Page 4

PARLIAMENT RESUMES.

Our Parliament resumes its sittings to-morrow after an exceptionally lengthy break of more than ten months, for it went into recess on 31st. October last. During that period the Government has doiie pretty well as it listed under the dictatorial powers assumed to itself and its Ministers by the legiglatioii passed last year by a thoroughly docile arid subiilissive majority in the House of Represfentatives. During those long months there has been no chance of any brake being placed upon their eager career and none can accuse them of failing to take advantage of the fme unembarrassed oppDrtunities thus afforded them to press 011 to the ultimate goal of nationalising "all means of production, distribution and exchange." It is therefore with no little anxious interest that those wJio are teally responsible for carrying on the industrial and business tadtivities of the country and for finding the wages and SalaridS and the taxation that have tb be paid out in COnil^ctiOn with them, await the issue as to what is to come next in the way of further burdens and restrictions to be imposed upon them. The interval has been notable, too, inas much as three members of Cabinet, including the Prime Minister, have found it possible to absent themselves from the country during by much the greater part of it, while yet another has been able to indulge himself in a two months holiday in Atistralia. This, "we fancy, is SPhibthing of a "reoord" in the ministerial annals of the country. However, all save one — and he daily expected back — will be on hand for the re-opening ceremonies. Nothing, of course, beyond cuStomary formalities is to be expected from thd tWd sitting days of this week, but next week we shall have the debate* on the Address-in-Reply opened, when doubtless there will be a good deal of pertinent critidsm and questioning, but probably without eliciting very much that is tangible by way of ansWer. With that disposed of we are led to expect an almost immediate presentation of the Budget for the financial year that is noW pretty well half gone. , With regard to this the question of taxation — said to be already the highest per capita in the world— will be an item of outstanding interest. Though last year's coilection under all heads, except unemployment taxation, Was Soniething like ^6-million in excess of that for the last year of the Coalition Government, there is no indicatlon that this year will see any reduetion. The most that the- Prime Minister, at any rate, has been able to intimate is the likelihood of some change in the incidence, which can scarcely but be considered disappointing from one who, at election time, was so emphatic.about the then existing taxation— a good deal of it imposed to meet the exigencies of the depression — having reached the bearable limit. When presenting" his first Budget, some thirteen months ago, our Finance Minister promised that this year's would see him bringing forward a Oompletely revised scheme of taxation. Having regard to his so lengthy and as yet fruitless absence from the Dominion, it is scarcely to be expected that this prcmise can be fulfilled, The most we may look for is therefore some little more patchwork on the already crazy quilt of taxation Jinder which the wage-paying industrial and commercial activities of the country are bejng smothered. If any really Well thought scheme is forthcoming it will certainly be surprisirtg under the circumstances, and Mr Nash will hardly be able to claim it as his own*. What further burdensome ( and restrictive industrial legislation the Prime Minister may have up his dapacious sleeve cannot very well even be guessed.-Though he has hinted there is still more to come, he has not as yet indicated the fcrm it is to take. One thing he has said, however, and that is that the law Will be amertded sd as to rendef more easy the herding of the clerical section of wage and salary earners into the ranks of trade unionism, where it will ultimately come under the control of the big Federation of Labour — the "One Big Union"— whose promotion the Gov« ernment is fostering— where, too, its compulsory Contributions Will be a Iio doubl welcome addition to the political "fighting fuilds" of the patty.