TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Southland Times, Issue 21098, 2 June 1930, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

“By exempting smaller incomes from any increase in taxation, and throwing the whole burden of inflated expenditure upon the shoulders of a steadily narrowing class, Mr. Snowden has aggravated one of the most disquieting tendencies of post war democracy—namely, the growing divorce of representation from taxation,” the Times observed in commenting on the British Budget. “During the past ten years the relief of larger and larger sections of the electorate from any share in the fiscal consequences of their voting by the progressive remission of direct taxation has been the principal cause of the alarming growth in public expenditure. The failure of Parliament to check the increasing extravagance of the spending departments has been due in some measure, _ it is true, to antiquated forms of financial procedure but it has been due even more to the absence of any effective criticism on the part of the bulk of the electorate. Until the voter in general is made, at least in some degree, to feel in his pocket and in his own person the effects of the policies for which he votes, he can scarcely be expected to resist the attractions offered to him from the party'platform. The divorce of taxation from representation, which has increased so rapidly during these post-war years,’ is already one of the most disquieting factors in our political life. The steady growth of direct at the expense of indirect taxation, and the exemption of larger and larger classes from both, must inevitably sap the sense of responsibility of the electorate, since it leaves the great majority of voters free to exploit to their heart’s content the resources of a selected few. There is literally no safeguard against panic measures unless the whole body of citizens, each according to his means, has some personal interest in counting the cost.”

A protest against the misrepresentation of British soldiers in war novels was recently made by Lord Moynihan, the eminent surgeon, who was chairman of the Council of Consultants throughout the war. “I had, perhaps, as long, varied, and intimate a knowledge as any man of our soldiers (I include both officers and men) in all stages of their service in war—from front line to command depot, return-to-duty, or discharge; from recruitment to disablement or death,” he said. “I had not the privilege of living for weeks or months with men in advanced trenches or in dug-outs, and I have no authority to speak of what happened there. But unless the act of wounding miraculously changed a man’s character and infected him with notions and manners hitherto utterly foreign to his nature, I' can most confidently assert that the pictures drawn of him in war novels are so grossly inaccurate as to be exasperating and revolting. The war plays, including the most popular, may rarely and at odd moments appear to come within range of truth, yet even then are so utterly remote as to bear witness only to the pitiful incompetence of their authors to see anything but the surface or to read the minds and interpret the soul of troops. The surface of men was perhaps not seldom rough; their language may have been Rabelaisian, their behaviour not always the most decorous. War is not a Sunday School. But if one speaks of our men in the multitude one can remember only their stout hearts, their gaiety of courage, their pride of race and battalion, their nobility of spirit. I believe that I represent all my profession when I claim that our wounded soldiers in their unquenchable heroism, fortitude, steadfastness, and infinite patience in time of harshest trial consecrated the hospitals which held them and made service for them a sacrament.”