HIGH TAXES & SOCIAL SERVICES

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 47, 18 November 1937, Page 11

HIGH TAXES & SOCIAL SERVICES

Chambers oi Commerce Criticism —t — r — . ' PRIME MINISTER'S REPLY "jSothing could be more misleading than the published' statement by Ihe Associated Chambers of Commerce coxicerning the causes of high taxation in New Zealand," said the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. M. J. Savage, in a statement. "It is a plain case of juggiing with iigures for the purpose of poJitical propaganda. Consider , the manner , iq w.hich the Associated Chambers deal with the cost of sociai ser-vices-r--an expenditure which no member of the .. anti-Government forccs dares publiely to oppose in detail. "In their statement, the Associated Chambers profess to leave out the increased cost of sociai service bendtits, yet aetually in their tabie of figures they include the necessary adminislru tive costs for carrying out these socml 'services. Is not the ' cost of providing sociai services part of the services themselves? Surely it is not legitimato to sep.arate them or to say they are not part and parcel of the sociai services provided by the Government. Of course, it costs more to run sociai services than it did two years ago. The sociai services rendered by the Goverument are nearly a third as big again. "The inclusion of one item, health administration, shows gross carelcssness, -if not "deliberqte misrepresentation. • This item . coutaius all the in' crease in health services as well as administration costs. Milk for school children, dental clinics, subsidies to hospital boards, Maori hygiene, and many other purely health services, ' are in cluded in the table by the 'Associated Chambers," yet they state that sociai services were not included. ' Public Works Maintenance. "In^creased Public Works maintenance costs" ,have been included in the "table. The- statement itself admits the legitimacy of maintenance costs, and the fair thing would havo been to omit them from the list. Aetually maintenance costs on both Public Works and railways have gone up. The reason is not hard to.iind. As just ono example, let me quote' f roin the annual report of the Marino Department, which was

recently presented to Parliament: — • " 'Extra repairs and maintenance work held over during the ffnancial depression have been carried out durIhg the.year. lt is not a sound prineiplo to postpone necessary maintenance work in lean years to the succeeding years, in that minor items become major. repairs in the interim. There is no doubt therefore that the next few years' accounts of this department will reflect abnormal maintenance expenditure, a portion of which was a legitimate eharge to previous years.' "What is true of the comparatively small works of the Marine Department is true in much larger measure of the greaf Public Works of the country and the railways. Everyone knows that the pinching and scraping policy of the depression Government starved the property of the people of necessary repairs and ,we are having to pay to-day lor the damage done then. This is largvl v why the maintenance of railways property is costing over £500,000 moro than it did two years ago. Uapital TJndertakings. "The Associated Chambers infer that the inclusion of ncw capital works in Public Works maintenance is not .'legitimate,' but it merely needs the works to be specifically mentioned — which they did not do — for the works to be fully justilied. "For example, aerodrom.es and einer"gency landing-grounds account for £131,804 of the increase in the item. The Associated Chambers are careful in drawing up their table to adn.it that defence exjjenditure need not be questioned, so why qtiestion aerodromes which are essential alike for civil and defence purposes? The Associated Chambers say, 'it could well have been expccted of the Government that it would have examined this £4,000,000 of expenditure more closely.' I wish thcso businessmen, who ought to Jcnow the necessity for aceuracy had spent a few minutes examining the figures themselves and they would have found that by the standards they themselves set, the total was nothing like £4,000,000. ' ' The f requent imputation by /there gentlemen that the Government increased spending is not for sociai services is ridicultfus. It is clearly the statement of the Associated Chambers which ;does not bear investigation — nct that of the Government."