FARMERS' COSTS

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 16, 12 October 1937, Page 5

FARMERS' COSTS

Preao Aaaop.iaHon.)

Failure to Adjust Taxes UNION SECRETARY'S COMMENT

(By ToIegraDh

WELLINGTON, Last Night. Commenting on the Taxing Bill today,. M» A. P. O'Shea, Dominion secretary of the New Zealand Farmers' Union, stated that there would be keen disappointment at the Government's failure to adjnst taxation more equitably, particularly the land-tax. The position with yegard to exemption for mortgage indebtedness was still the same, and, apart from the injustice of this imposition, it should be stressed that the Government was losing valuable means of helping to relieve unenu ployment. Boot manufactufers were drawing attention to the faet that unemployment was being caused by high costs, but it would probably be found if careful examination wero made that the farming industries could absorb many times the number of people likely to be affected in the boot industry if only some relief were given in taxation more particularly by doing away with the unfair practice of taxing a man on an equity he did not possess, If the problem of high costs were tackled the primary industries could assxst the Government by providing employment and the cost would probabbly be very much less than that of the methods being used at present to deal with the problem.