The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS. TUESDAY, MAY 15, 1917 FARMERS' TAXATION

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 275, 15 May 1917, Page 2

The Times. PUBLISHED ON TUESDAY AND FRIDAY AFTERNOONS.

TUESDAY, MAY 15, 1917 FARMERS' TAXATION

"We nothing extenuate, nor set down nuaht in malice."

THAT New Zealand, in common with the rest of the Empire, and indeed all belligerent countries, is m for a lengthened period of heavy taxation becomes more and more plainly evident as the duration of the war is extended. This in an unpleasant fact that we have to face with the best grace we can muster, and, that being so. the wisest thing to do is to cast abou! for some device fur raising the amount annually required by means that will cause Ihe smallest possible amount of friction between the Slate and the tax-payer, will occasion the leas! possible dislocation of business, and at the same time impose as nearly as may be an equality of sacrifice upon individuals.

We have not yd met anyone who likes to be taxed. Such a imim avis there may be, but he lias not so far Healed within our ken. All normally - minded people look upon the laxgatherer us one of the inevitable evils of life inherited by mankind ill the i ime of our parents fall from Paradise and fated to remain until the millenium-

Some of us achieve the feat of paying up with a cheerful countenance but it is a mere outside

show, for in our hearts we all firmly believe that we are being unfairly mulcted in order that the other fellow may escape some of his legitimate responsibilities. The consequence is that at no time do we feel more critically disposed towards the powers that be than when we receive the yearly demand to pay so much towards the oiling of the wheels of that cumbrous piece of machinery we call the State.

In such mood it is perhaps no wonder that many of us are inclined to believe that those we are foolish enough to put in authority over us, often without giving more than a passing thought to either their antecedents or their characters! derive an impish satisfaction from devising ingenious methods of fleecing us. In point of fact the direct converse is the truth. No quack physician is more anxiausto sugar-coat the pill he prescribes for his patient than the politician is to prevent his victim uttering a groan, or even making a wry face over the process of being skinned. The average Colonial Treasurer is fond enough of retaining his place to be careful to move along what he believes to be the line of least resistance and is grateful for any hint that will I show him what that line is.

The tiller of the soil always has been, and perhaps always will be, particularly marked out as the prey of the tax-gatherer. The reasons for this are obvious In the first place his possessions are more plainly visible to the public view than other forms of wealth and thus attract the eyes not only of the man whose business it is to extract an income for the State, but of those who endeavour to shift the burden from their own shoulders on to some one else's. In the second place he is, from the nature of his occupation and his comparatively isolated environment less capable of giving utterance to a combined outcry than any other section of the community. A village of coalminers or a small community of water-siders is able to make more noise over a grievance than a whole countryside of farmers; and in such matters it is noise that counts with the politicians everv time. The farmer appears to have only one organisation capable of expressing his opinions, and that is the Farmers' Union, but upon this great subject of taxation of farmers it appears to have failed him utterly. The net result of a long discussion at last year's conference was the conveyance to the Government of the harmless platitude that taxation should be imposed pressing equally on all classes of the community. This was no lead to a Treasurer faced with the necessity of collecting so much money, and anxious to obtain it in the manner most acceptable, or perhaps it would be better to say least obnoxious to the sufferers. And it is hardly to be wondered that he blundered into that glaring anomaly, the Farmers' Income and Excess Profits Tax. Now, excess profits in so far as they mean profits arising out of the war afford one of the fairest fields for taxation that could be imagined. In fact we can hardly conceive of anyone who would venture to grumble if the State annexed 100 instead of 4.') per cent of the gains made from the blood and tears of our bravest and our best. But in the case of the Farmers' Excess Profits Tax the fixing of an arbitrary standard income to measure the profits by has removed it from all connection with the war. In practice it has worked out into the most glaring ineptitudes and injustices. Efficiency and industry become merely drawbacks. One man may be making far less than he was before the war and be paying a heavy tax, while his neighbour, whose income has doubled owing to the rise in prices, may escape it altogether. The Farmers' Union is to meet in conference again very shortly, and we trust they will spend some little time in arriving at a sound conclusion as to the form the inevitable taxation upon farmers ought to take. We can hardly imagine they will approve of the present impost. We have never made any secret of our belief in the wisdom of an export tax, but we have no wish to force it down their throats if they can suggest any- j thing better and fairer. Of one thing, however, we can assure them and that is that it is not

only to their interest but their manifest duty to point out to the Government what they conceive to be the right way of taxing them.