COSTLY GOVERNMENT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 73, 17 November 1931, Page 6

COSTLY GOVERNMENT

UT PROSIM.

(To the Editor) . Sir, — In my last letter I referred to the vast numbers of representatives, local bodies, and officials of every type which prey upon the long suffering community of a small population. Now I wish in a few figures to show the prodigous cost of maintaining this unwieldy system. Last Year our public debt was £267,383,000, and more this year. This includes the war debt. Taxation two years ago was, Government, £17,832,000; Local bodies, £6,347,700, a total of £24,179,700, thus sh owing a terrific cost in taxes and rates, totalling £16 per head of the whole of the population or £64 for every family of four; and yet there is no real solid effort made to reduce this enormous cost, only an endless increase in numbers and cost year by year. The cost is now more than that of two yers ago. We talk about inflation and here it is in f ull swing, and really very little of deflation in sight in spite of the vast amount of talk by those responsible for the cost. Nor is this the only infliction, for these representatives are for ever, through Acts of Parliament and local body regulations, curtailing our liberties, "Britons never, never will be slaves." Yet there is hardly a single act passed but in some way or other hands us over body and soul to the dictates of our bureaueratic bosses in Wellington, instead of decentralizing their power. Liberty loving Britishers apparently love to have it so, or surely they would demand a pledge from every would-be respesentative to have all this tyranny ended, for it is nothing more or less than tyranny. Here again is another reason for the plight we are. in. These are the conditions for which we pay our representatives, no care, no real guardianship over our interests, only betrayal of our money interests through excessive taxation, and of our liberty. The Hon. Downie Stewart in his budget speech on the 6th inst. refers to "three great problems with which the country is faced are therefore the precarious position of the farmer, the position of the public finances, and the great chronie problem of unemployment. These problems are inextricably interwoven, and they eonstitute a menace to the whole stability of our social organisation." To these there ought to be added a fourth, that of our central Civil Service which has become a great power in the land and is for ever working to increase that power. And strange to say, the electors' representatives in Parliament assembled, are for ever passing legislation to add perpetually increasing authority by centralising everything in Wellington; and stranger still the community seems to endorse the procedure which will enmesh the whole country in an autocracy with practically unlimited power to do as they like and so destroy our boasted democracy, and add never ending burdens on the people. Mr. Downie Stewart in the same speech says, "but in my opinion the. public will not willingly submit to further taxation unless it is satisfied that the most drastic economies have been effected in departmental expenditure." It is precisely in this direction that the strongest opposition of the civil service and other public officials will be powerfully exercised to check decrease of numbers and salaries, thus laying a tremendous burden on our farmers, a great percentage of whom can barely make a living, a poor one at that.

Why is it that our Parliamentary and local representatives and public servants so utterly fail to recognise their great responsibilities and the trust we so foolishly repose in them as honourable men. Instead of this, as soon as they are elected or installed in office, they appear to absolutely forget the sacred trust which ought to be the paramount motive of their aetions, but as far as possible they hide 01* refrain from. giving an open, straight account of all their doings and aetions. When we get information it has to be dragged out of representatives and officials, which is a disgrace to their positions and can so easily be interpreted as sinister chicanery or unprincipled sophistry — I am, etc.