REVENUE RAISING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 48, 23 September 1916, Page 4

REVENUE RAISING.

The war has upset so many preconceived notions concerning social and economic problems that it is not surprising to find uncompromising partisans of a couple of years ago, who then were quite sure of the foundations of their belief, materially revising their views on a variety of questions, writes the Wellington correspondent of the Auckland Star. He goes on to say: When tiro chairman of the board of the Batik of Xcw Zealand suggested in the early days of tfie crisis that an export duty would be a sound and simple way of raising a substantial part of the additional revenue required to meet the growing demands upon the public purse he met with little support among businessmen. But to-day there are numbers of shrewd people in Wellington who believe than an export duty would have approached nearer to the ideal ol “equality of sacrifice” than has any of the imposts designed by the Minister of Finance. “For one thing,” said a high authority, “It would have kept the local prices of meat and butter and cheese down *to a reasonable level, and for anotner it would have reached the very people who are best able to bear the burden of taxation.” The subject is not an easy one to discuss without raising the party issue, which seems to centre for the most part around personal interests, but this is not only a consumer’s view. There are many producers who declare that in the light of their fuller experience they would have rather, seen an export duty than the more complicated methods of taxation t‘ which they have been compelled to submit.