WELLINGTON TOPICS

Hokitika Guardian, 4 September 1929, Page 2

WELLINGTON TOPICS

THE PRIMAGE DUTY. ALTERNATIVE SUGGESTED. (Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 2. Neither the. members of the Labour Party nor the independent members of the United Party are yet reconciled to the primage duty by which the Prime* Minister proposes to assist his revenue for the current financial year. Probably both the Labourites and the,lndependents—'or, at any rate, a majority of them, — will stand bv the Government even if Sir Joseph Ward refuses to entertain any other ’ means than the one he has indicated for finding the money ho requires; but they will do so with some reluctance and even with some misgivings. They are quite prepared to believe . that the money is required and that sacrifices must he made to maintain the equilibrium of the Dominion’s finances, but they disapprove strongly of the rough and ready means of the primage duty, which, they maintain, ignores the/ principle of equality of sacrifice, and really presses more harshly upon the poor than it''does upon.the . rich. They are quite ready to • accept the Prime Minister’s assurance that the duty will be only a temporary measure, simply to assist in carrying the country over a crisis; but they emphasise the fact that in its present guise it will run well into a million a year. the better way. Referring to the'subject this morning J. M. McCombs, who is popularly allotted the portfolio of Finance in the. first New Zealand Labour Government, and who, meanwhile, is not ill-disposed towards the present Governmetnt, 1 strongly urged that Sir. Joseph Ward should substitute a temporary surtax for a temporary primage duty. "The one per cent primage duty,” he said,, “yields, says, £424,000 a year; a two'per Ofht prjmagje duty would yield £848,000. If the'present one per cent 1 primage were repealed and a ten per cent surtax were imposed on goods now dutiable- and excise also were -increased jby 10 • per cent, • the yield would be £886,000 which would give an excess of £60,000 to offset goods which, the increased duty, might shut out. The result would be that goods now paying 10 per cent would pay nn additional one per. cent; goods paying 20 per Cent, two per cent; goods paying 30 per cent, 3 per cent; goods paying 50 per cent, 5 per cent. Under this arrangement goods now nominally on the free list would b/e actually free of all duty, ' including • primage, aCiidythe free breakfast table would once more become a fact.’’ To the mere layman the suggestion cannot fail to make an appeal'. SIMPLE AND EQUITABLE. “This arrangement,” the future Minister of Finance insisted, “would mean less /work and less worry to everyone, from the Prime Minister himself down to Customs collector. The 10 per cent surtax would he imposed upon the £25,000,000 worth of dutiable goods and there would be no need to calculate duty on the £lB,000,000 worth of free goods. The two per cent primage plus the ad valorem duty means that the 10 per cent goods have the duty increased by 2 1-5 per cent or to 22 per cent. The 20 per cent duty is increased by 11 per cent and the 40 per cent duty by 5} per cent, owing to , each of these duties being increased by a dead level of 2 1-5 per cent. The 10 per cent surtax would mean an increase of 10 per cent upon the sum of all duties and an additional tax of 5 per cent upon the sum of all duties on foreign motor bodies and so forth. In addition to the simplicity of this method of taxation would be its absolute justice as determined by Parliament ip its efforts to frame a tariff that would distribute the burden ,of taxation as equitably as possible between the various sections of the community concerned. Thiat, of course, is the goal to keep in view.” PRECEPT AND PRECEDENT. Mr McCombs maintains that threefourths of the members of the House df Representatives are averse at heart to the principle of the primage duty and that tho measure should no tbe thrust upon the dissentients until other methods of raising the money required Have been considered. By / one stroke of his pen, he says, Sir Joseph Ward, with a majority of the House behind him, could free the breakfast table, household ironmongery, orockery, linens, cotton and a host of other necessaries of life from all taxation and at the same time could give dual protection to many of the existing local industries. He did this twenty years ago by the passage of the Customs Amendment Act of 1900 and Parliament would welcome similar legislation to-day. The primage duty came into operation in 1915, extinguishing many of the concessions Mr Seddon and Sir Joseph Ward hmself had made to the public, and during the fourteen years of its existence it has conveyed rath-

er more than five millions to the Treasury. Sir Joseph Ward, it may jbe repeated, is seeking only temporary assistance from this source; hut upon Mr McComb’s showing it looks as if even in this case, the surtax •was the sounder means of supplying the needs of the moment.