LOWER TAXATION

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 53, 31 January 1938, Page 9

LOWER TAXATION

NATIONAL PARTY POLICY. FIRST. STEP DISCLOSED. ‘Our policy is to lessen the amount of money collected' from the people, There is still an unemploymen tax upon the earnings of women. We look upon it as an injustice. The National Party will begin to reduce taxation by removing the unemployment tax from women. We have not the problem of workless women with us to-day, and in practice we cannot •use this money to help women. Consequently, the first thing will be to take the tax off women." This disclosure of a speoific plank in the National Party platform was made by its Leader (Hon. A. Hamilton), when speaking at the garden party held on Saturday by the southern division organisation of the National Party in the Manawatu electorate at the beautiful home of Mr and Mrs It. McKelvie, near ltongotoa, when he critioised the taxation and spending policy of the existing Government. Asked what were his party’s intentions regarding the sales tax, Mr Hamilton said he was not going to say anything about that at present. New Zealanders had not always placed politics on the basis of a national influence, stated Mr Hamilton, and British people were not always influenced by what was logical and debatable. Sentiment and personalities had been allowed to enter into consideration, though they were minor factors. Politicians had to take the people's verdict, whether they liked it or not, but sometimes that verdict was not correctly recorded, and they had to see that it was correctly recorded. It would not be unless the election was made a clear-cut issue between the National Party and the Labour Party. If a Labour Government was then returned, they would have no complaints. Although Labour held 67 seats in the House, a majority of over three to one, they did not represent the majority of the votes, only 46 per cent, of which had been cast for the Labour Party. There had been a bad mix-up at the last election in the Manawatu, and a worse one at InvercaigiJ], where the successful Labour candidate polled only 36 per cent, of the total votes. The speaker thought the figure for the Manawatu electorate was 34 per cent. They had to see' that such a ; situation did not arise again. It must bo the National Party on one side and the Labour Party on the : other. i SAFEGUARDING OF ASSETS. Nothing had been added to the National Debt by his party during the depression years, proceeded Mr Hamilton- The Government certainly , made cuts and reduced expenditure, leaned on reserves to the extent of £6,000,000, and ran up a deficit of £4,000.000. Australia, on the other hand, made certain reductions, but borrowed her way through, and today carried £60,000,000 of a floating debt as a result of money not paid during the depression, and with no assets to represent it. It looked as . if Australia’s policy had been the ; wiser politically, as the Government there was still in office. Democracy j was a strange thing, and it appeared ; that people would respond to the policy, but not to a reduction in ex- : penditure. Conditions were very cheery and £ prosperous, the speaker continued, ] Last year New Zealand’s wealth was 1 the richest in its history, exports be- 1 ing valued at £66,000,000. Just as ; the present Government went on to | the Treasury benches the tide of de- ‘ pression turned, and the first thing ’ they did was to make a Christmas allocation of £IOO,OOO to the unemploy- j ed. There was, an • abundance of money at present, and their chief job was to get it . spent, which they were . busy doing. But who was going ’to , carry the burden of the next slump P 1

From £29,000,000, ten years ago, continued Mr Hamilton, and £30,000,000 in 1935, the Budget expenditure had leapt to £54,000,000 this year. It was easy to make commitments, hut not easy to get them off, If another slump came, and he hoped it would not, the burden would fall upon those people with property and money assets. The Labour Government would meet the situation by inflation and using reserves established over a very long period of years. That was the objects All private property would have to ‘’go, and the best way to achieve-that was to tax it until it was worthless. That, would happen if they did not wake up. People had not worried about politics at. the last election and they had “just climbed right up on top of them.” FIGHT FOR INHERITANCE. Nevv Zealand, under the system of the past hundred years, had built up a standard of living which was tile best the world had ever seen. Its people did not know how well off they were. They had had a life so easy that they were getting flabby. They must be spurred on to fight for and defend their inheritance. New Zealanders would not take the loss of their inheritance lying down. There was no better system than democracy, which meant “one man one vote.' 1 People kept urging the speaker to hurry’ up and get the present Government out of ‘office. He w r as doing his bit, and wanted them to do theirs. The National Party had 19 representatives in the House, and had repeatedly thrown down challenges to the Government, only to be outvoted. It was the people who ruled, and unless they were prepared to do so they could not get the best out of the democratic system. The Labour Party had learned how to make that system meet its requirements by good discipline and organisation. The National Party stood for freedom rather than discipline, but must organise. It did not matter to Mr Cobbe (Hon. J, G. Cobbe was among those present) or himself personally that they were returned, said Mr Hamilton, but it did concern them that a good, sound progressive GovcrnniGnt whs returned, Lots of people said they were not interested in politics, but if they did not wake up soon they would find they had nothing left to be interested in. FARMING COMMUNITY’S DUTYContinuing, Mr Hamilton said th© farming community, if they did not get together as such a community, and make their voice heard as an effective voting machine in politics, were not being fair. to their families or themselves. They must see that they filing their full strength into the election battle. It was the Federation of Labour which ruled this country to-day. Before Labour went into office there were 80,000 Trades Union members. • Now, with compulsion, the number was estimated, at 250,000, which would give some idea of Labour’s financial strength. They talked of the National Party representing the “big fellow,” but they themselves were the “big fellow.” , Farmers, said Mr Hamilton, had to i choose between Labour , and the Na- . tional Party, w'hieh was fighting the j cause of the individual as against col- ] lectivism, of private enterprise ag ] against State ownership, and for the t right to own a house and a bit of ] property. They could make no mis- t