PUBLIC OPINION

Hokitika Guardian, 20 August 1931, Page 2

PUBLIC OPINION

THE TAXATION OCTOPUS. Mr Snowden, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in a written answer, gave the following figures for death duties received in the last ten years:—l92l- - £52.191,000; 1922-23, £53,871,003; 1923-24, £57,800,000; 1921-25, £59,450,000; 1925-20, £61,200,000; 1926-27, £67,320,000; 1927-28, £77,310,000'; 1930-31, ,£82,610,000. Total, £675,092,0000. The total amount c'f death duties for the last ten years, via., £675,092,000, is £7,000,000 greater than the whole of the national debt in 1913.

FRANCE ALOOF. “French reserve on the subject of the Hoover plan was to be expected, for there is to-dny' no European country which traditionally maintains on the whole so aloof an attitude to international economics. ‘France,’ wrote Dr, Grothkopp. in hi* recent analysis of European tariff problems, ‘is of all European countries the most autarchic, and her trade the least expansive. Her unemployment is also lowest, and there 'fore the detachment with which she regards the American prosals is iflevitably greatest.”—“Yorkshire Post,” THE TIME WAS RIPE, “The proposal," sa.Ys the “Times” (London), “has not been made one moment too soon ; and it is at least clear that American citizens have now a rather better prospect of continuing to receive the dividends on their money invested in Europe. During the Jest ten years money has flowed from the" United States into German industry so freely that the total sum now invested is estimated in hundreds of millions of pounds ; and the investors had begun to fear that they might lose not only the interest but also the capital. Psychologically and temporarily the effect of President Hoover’s proposal is bound to be excellent; and it behoves the statesmen of Europe, where the next step must be taken, to do their utmost to render its benefits practical and permanent.” WORK AND OUTLOOK. “The type of mind that a man has depends largely upon his contacts with other men,’’ writes Dr Delisle Burns, in “Industrial Welfare.’’ “The most striking contrast is that between the coal miner and the railway man. The coal miner lives in a district where the whole population is dominated by the industry in which he is concerned, The consequence is that the coal miner’s attitude is one that looks inwards on to the community in which he Jives. Hence when you have a coal millers’ strike it is vei'y difficult to get the coal miner to see other people’s poipt of view. He lives in an alien world all by himself. The railway man, however, is always in contact with people who are not railway men. The consequence is that his mind group has a living frontier. It is not within a hard shell. He is therefore very much more amenable to pressure and influences from the outside world. So each man changes his character and outlook in reference to his group.”