TAXATION AND UNEMPLOYMENT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 2473, 29 August 1922, Page 2

TAXATION AND UNEMPLOYMENT.

HOW THE ‘WORKERS ARE AFFECTED. ' Xo one can attend meetings of assumed advanced people ealled labourites, socialists or communists without becoming convinced that most of these individuals fail to understand the relation in which the workers stand to State Finance. The Red advocate who advances specious proposals for the betterment of the lot of the workers is never interrupted by the audience with inquiries as to the source from which the money can be taken to carry out his schemes. It is tacitly assumed that the means can always he obtained by a further taxation * of the rich. That the rich are only the agents through whom the mass of the people pay is not realised. Real progress towards public eeonomy will not be achieved until it is brought home to all that profligate expenditure on the part of the State is, and must be, paid for by them as individual citizens. The Red advocates of New Zealand, both in and out of Parliament, seek to impress the masses with the idea that they pay through the Custom Tax, but that Land and Income Tax is paid by a class apart, pictured as . the wealthy. This is very much of W an illusion. Taxes are paid both indirectly and directly and are passed on to the consumers in various ways affecting our whole social life in such a manner that the ordinary wage earners feel the burden in common with the land owner, manufacturer, merchant or other capital owning individual. At present the burdens in industry, trade and commerce by .way of taxation are so very heavy that in many instances ihe tax is not paid being by current income, but is eating into assets which are essential to the continuance and development of business enterprise. EFFECT OX THE WORKER. It is a simple proposition that if 3/4 in the pound Income Tax is paid instead of, say, 5/-, there must, be less of reserved income available for the maintenance and expansion of the business from which the income is drawn. From this it may be said that every pound taken by way of taxation is an amount taken from industry. How this affects the workers is twofold, first in causing high prices, and second in reducing employment. If a business firm has in pay one hundred, or a thousand, pounds in taxes to the Government it is compelled, whatever is paid, to count it as part of its expenses of production or service. It will hsL. seen, therefore, that the higher lher rax the greater is the cost and the higher the price to the consumer. High taxation means high prices and the workers have to bear the burden as consumers. On the other "“v hand the restriction of capital for investment on account of high taxation is reflected in stagnation of trade and reduced employment from which the workers must suffer as wage earners. If the wage earner in the mass could but realise the evil effects upon their conditions of living involved in high taxation, whether it be in the form of land, income, customs or any other State charges, they would recognise as their real .enemies the men who see as the only way of effecting results more and more of increased taxation. At the present there is a call from employers for the lowering of costs, including wages, and the reduction of prices so as io stabilise conditions and produce a greater volume of trade. By increased efficiency in management and work; the use of improved machinery and plant and operating on a moderate margin of pritit the costs of production can be somewhat lessened, but business will still be hindered, and the workers suffer both as consumers and#' wage earners, so long as the burden of heavy taxation bangs as a millstone round the neck of the industries of our country. THE WAR AX’D AFTER.

During the war period we were living oil credit. Some stupid people think we might go on so living because we did it in the stress of war. That is over and we have to pay. In order to make good under the new conditions it is necessary U cut out all waste. Wrong methods of administration, acts <>f defalcation, needless expenditure of every kind- —there is where the “cut’’ is wanted in order that the people may lind some relief from the heavy taxation now resting upon the country. Unemployment of capital carries with it unemployment of labour and the business men and wage earners are the unconscious partners who suffer. (Contributed by the X.Z. Welfare League.)