A SPENDTHRIFT BUDGET.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 5, 29 September 1937, Page 4

A SPENDTHRIFT BUDGET.

The first impression gained from a cursory perusal of the Hon. Walter Nash's second Budget is that he hate sought to divert attention from its real and8 practical implications by interspersing it With lengthy recitals not only of what his Goverument has aecoinplished but also of its benevoleftt intentions fcr the future. This is all merely a repetitiori of what we have tiine and again heard from ministerial lips with a reiteration that has already become weansome. What Mr Nash, in his freshness to ofhce, does not seem to understand is that a Budget is not intended to be a historical document, except in . so far- as may be needed for the explanation of the financial proposals embodied in it. Much lcss is. it intended that it should be rnade the vehicle of party propaganda. If Mr Nash wishes to learri-^-as' apparently he needs to — how to frame a succinct and order'ly Budget, conveying to the electors in the briefest and most intelligible form what they desire and are entitled to know, then a study of those issued by the Hon. Downie Stewart in his day may be commended to him. Extracting from the mass of extraneous verbiage he employs, we find that, far nom granting the productive mdustrial and commetcial activitifcs on which the real prosperity of tnt country and the lasting welfaire of its wage-earners really depend, any relief from the heavy burden of taxation already imposed Upon them, Mr Nash proposes very mfiterially to increase that burden. As compared even with Labour' s first full yeaf of office the collectioii of general taxation is to go up by something like A3i-million. Compared with the last year of thcr Coalition Government's administration it is to go up by no less than £8-million, or more than £$ a head of the wbole population, inen, women, children and infants. To this has to be added an increase on last year of very close on a million in unemployment taxation, and this despite the loud claims which the Government is making as to the reduction in tk number of the unemployed. The question which all those who voted Labour 'at the last election must be asking themselves Will be as to how these figures sqUate With the Prime Minister's pre-election declaration that taxation had reached its bearable limit and must be kept down. Then, turning to the other side of the ledger, we find that expenditure from the Consolidated Fund is this year to exceed that of the immediately preceding year by something more than ^4-million! This, too, comes on top of an increase for that year of £ 4 3-4-hiillion oVer and aboVe the figure for » the Coalition "Government's last year of office, Thus during the present Government's first two years the expenditure from that fund will have gone up by £& 3-4-million. That, however, tells less than half the tale. When beforethe electors in November, 1935, the. Prime Minister was very strong in urging that the National Debt was also reaching the bearable limit. Still, sinee he came into power, and despite the extra financial resources drawn from increased taxation, that debt has increased by something like £7inillion, a very large proportion of that amount having been spent on public works of very doubtful remunerative value. ' Last year some £ioi-million was set aside for public works, a fairly tidy sum. For the current year, however, this is to be increased by about 7 5 per cent., the estimated expenditure under that heading running up to little less than £17 ^-million. What addition this will make to the Public Debt is not revealed, but it cannot possibly be anything other than substantial. , The Minister would seemingly make light of this because for his ioan requirements he purposes drawing upon the funds of State departments— presumably of the Post Office Savings Bank, the State Life Insurance Office and the like, to a large extent representing savings of the people, who are thus to . be made. compulsory contributors to the Government's extravagant spending. There is only one conclusion to be drawn ffom the pohcy thus disclosed. That is that, be the ultimate consequences to the country and its people what they may > the Government is determined until next election to maintain a fictitious show of prosperity by spending the people's own money on every possible undertaking that can be found as an outlet for it. In the meaiitim^, r'egardless altogether of the hardships inflicted upon people of small and restricted means, the cost of living is being forced steadily up, while sound industrial undertakings, calculated to yield permanent employment, are being crushed under ^;he load of taxation and of increased costs of production.