WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 October 1922, Page 4

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

TAXATION BILL. PROMISES FOB THE FUTURE. SPECIAL TO GUARDIAN. WELLINGTON, Oct. 13 : The Prime .Minister had left himself, nothing to say about the Taxation Bill , when ho rose in the House on M ednesclay night to move the second reading of the measure. His proposals had been discussed piecemeal again ' and again during the previous ten or twelve days till there really was no fresh point for any one to make. Mr Massey was a little more definite than he had been before, however, in explaining that his reason for refusing companies the relief to which they were clearly entitled was that the concession would entail increasing the tax on incomes between £3OO and £2OOO a year. But having made the admission that he was continuing the excessive taxation of companies in order that a large number of comfortably situated people might escape with less than their fair share of the burden, he proceeded to deplore the unfortunate results this inequitable shift was producing. Mr Sidey, the deputy leader of the Opposition, detected this weak spot in the Minister’s case and made the most of it, but he was not supported with any spirit by the critics that followed him. LIBERALS AND TAXATION.

The Minister of Agriculture in replying to Mr Sidey adopted a style of argument to which one or two others of Mr .Massey’s colleagues are over prone. The member for Dunedin South had specially protested against the excessive company taxation, which ho held responsible, as the Prime .Minister himself had done, for many of the financial ami industrial troubles afflicting the country. Mr Nosworthv’s retort to this was that the Liberal Party “must take more responsibility for the incidence of taxation than any other party” since it had administered the affairs of the country for twenty years of the last thirty. Obviously he wished to imply that it was not the war and the over-spending of the Reform Party that bad necessitated tlie imposition of an income tax of 8s Oil in the pound, but the change in the incidence of taxation effected by the Liberal Party just thirty years before. Surely if tlie Reformers bad entertained any desire to change the incidence they would have had plenty of opportunities to effect Choir purpose during ten years of office. LABOUR’S ATTITUDE.

.Mr Holland never shows to greater disadvantage than he does when he attempts to discuss finance in the House. He can talk glibly about the rapacious “big man” and the oppressed •‘little man." but when he essays to deal with figures he is hopelessly at sea. His lieutenant, Mr J. McCombs, th** member for Lyttelton, on the ether hand, stands high among the hall dose'll men in the House, if there are as many, who can expound public finance with any measure of understanding ami facility. His manner is unattractive, and his methods are sometimes objectionable, but his matter always is sound and well arranged. Probably he has no more sympathy for the scandalously ill Created companies than his leader has. but long before the cry for their relief was raised he had pointed to the injustice they were suffering. On Wednesday night he returned to the subject with a declaration that he was quite prepared to accept the alternative of increased individual taxation rather than see the industries of the country crippled by the retention of the present system. With such an invitation to do tlie right, thing -Mr Massey need not have hesitated. PROMISSORY NOTES. The local newspapers are moving verv warmly just now in regard to the Prime Minister’s financial and taxation proposals. Having urged Mr Massey to do several tilings lie persists in leaving undone, they doubtless realise that silence is golden. The “Dominion,’* however, regards the Minister’s hint concerning his readiness to accept promissory notes in payment of land tax as a concession which landholders should not overlook. Tt does not inquire why similar accommodation is not extended to companies and firms and individuals who are contemplating pay day with considerable trepidation, nor what the Minister is going to do with the notes when he. gets them ; but these questions are being discussed in the city with considerable animation and curiosity. But it is cheerfully conceded in all quarters that the Government has dealt as leniently as possible with its unfortunate debtors and that its own necessities have licit made it heedless of the diffieuUies of the people who provide its revenue. At the same time the pay meut of taxation ly promissory notes is an innovation of startling novelty.