The Guardian AND EVENING STAR. With which is incorporated "The West Coast Times.” THURSDAY, FEB. 24th. 1921. “WHEN LABOUR RULES.”

Hokitika Guardian, 24 February 1921, Page 2

The Guardian AND EVENING STAR. With which is incorporated "The West Coast Times.” THURSDAY, FEB. 24th. 1921. “WHEN LABOUR RULES.”

\ [,atk Knglish Commercial paper • •*- ferring to the above subjest, says tiiat tu tlie unfortunate middle class man who, during the economic stringency of the past" two years, has been more or less crushed between the upper and nether millstone- —Capital and Ivahour there is but cold comfort in the book recently written by Mr .J. H. Thomas, M.P., under the review of the writer’s opinion and arguments from the standpoint of finance is published in the current issue of the Incorporated Accountants’ Journal, and there are several points worthy of notice. Mr Thomas frankly admits that in all industrial and social upheavals the middleclass man is always the victim, on account of his having to maintain a higher standard of respectability and provide his children with a better elocution than the manual worker. Consequently his “position is a real hardship. Having thus sympathised with the brain worker, Mr Thomas proceeds to offer, as a security against a .continuance of bis present unsatisfactory position, the prospect that, when Labour rules, strikes and wars, with their disastrous effect on production and prices will be no more—in short, that nationalisation will reduce the cost of commodities. The unreasonableness of this is obvious, offering as it does facilities for making incessant demands on the State and of killing private enterprise and deadening healthy competition which after all, is the primary factor in limiting the cost of commodities. Dealing more particularly with finance, Mr Thomas makes the agreeable assertion | that neither a man nor an industry should be over-taxed —the latter pro* timing an iio'vif'hh). rebound against tin* community but like a l>olt from the blue ho presents to the middle 'class reader the almost ominous threat that when Labour rules a portion of our War Stock is to be cancelled, and lie further states that this will only he the “tearing up of a few* scraps of paper.’’ Tn view of the assurances of British statesmen, with regard to the fact that the credit of the counry has * always been mainained, this is intol- : era bio. Tn regard to taxation. Mr I Thomas declares that the Labour Party stands absolutely for the entire abolition of all indirect taxation. There ! will only be one tax. that is income tax, but death duties would bo enormously increased, the argument put forward in support of the latter policy being that the effect of increased death duties would be to make men hoard their money less and use it more for the benefit of the community, the 'result being that instead of there being so many wealthy men in the country there would he more men comfortably off. By the time, however, 'monies' capital has been partially confiscated and their estates raided to provide for tho expenditure of a Labour Government, there could not lie much loft, as the. nation deprived of capital for the*development of industry would be on the verge of bankruptcy. Mr Thomas, be it noted, develops his argument upon the erroneous assumption that there are quite a number of young

men at the present time iu possession of enormous fortunes, whereas the number is negligible as compared with those inheriting modest patrimony, the re suit of application, thrift and self-de-nial. Speculating on the chances of one day establishing a world-wide currency, Mr Thomas ventures the opinion that when Lbour is in power there ought to lie the same standard of wages and of living, whether in England, France or Roumania. Whether this can be reasonably applicable to the teeming millions of India and China the author wisely refrains from giving any suggestion. The aim of Labour, Mr Thomas contends is not to destroy the British Empire, but to change the Government and control of affairs, because Labour has been exploited too long for the good of the few. The book contains scarcely a word of commendation for any British institution, although of course, the authority of a world parliament is the author’s great aspiration and if the object of its publication is to allay the suspicions of business men and to attract the support of the middle class to a Labour programme, it will lamentably fail in its purpose