MAKING AND SAVING

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2265, 19 April 1921, Page 4

MAKING AND SAVING

Discussing the high rate of taxation in Ihe United Kingdom, the Spectator says:—The most that you can hope for in an overtaxed nation is petty economies, for with very high taxation it pays better to save £IOO than to make it. If you cut down your expenditure by £IOO in minor economies, you have that £IOO to save or to spend on something else. If you make £IOO, the Government will possibly halve it and certainly take £3O of if, and leave you only £7O. Thai is probably why France became a rut l ion of minor economists. France was throughout most of its history so grossly and arbitrarily over-taxed that the energy required for moneymaking and speculation was deflected to minor economies as the line of least resistance. England, on the oilier hand, was in former days less heavily and much less arbitrarily taxed, and therefore her people were more inclined to make money than to save it. Unquestionably the making instinct is better for a nation than the saving .instinct. Consult the parable of the man who put It is talent in a napkin. Here, then, is another reason why we must insist upon a harrier to over-taxa-tion and arbitrary taxation, and make men feel that they are not perpetually at the mercy of the Executive in the matter of their spending incomes.