Large Surplus Leads to Waste

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 47, 18 May 1927, Page 3

Large Surplus Leads to Waste

BUSINESS MEN’S VIEWS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ACTS To pay off an overdraft is good business in the eyes of most commercial men. Council members of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce contend the contrary, however. Debt is conducive to good business in ‘heir eyes, for it compels economy and strict attention to business. That, at least, was the contention of several members at the Chamber meeting yesterday, when the question of pressing for a reduction in taxation came up for discussion. Mr. J. B. Grove as the mover of the following resolution was responsible. “That the budget surplus as published for the year ending March 31, 1927, has fully justified the Chamber’s former protest for the reduction of taxation —the weight of which was an important factor in maintaining the high cost of living—and that further representations be made to the Government.”

Speaking to the resolution, Mr. Grove said that had these moneys, unnecessarily exacted from the taxpayers, been allowed to move along the ordinary channels of industry and commerce, their utilisation for trade purposes would have minimised the depression and have rendered the problem of unemployment less acute. A big surplus, said the president, Mr. Lunn, tended to foster extravagance. Other members spoke in the same strain and the motion was carried unanimously.