“GRAVELY SERIOUS”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 579, 4 February 1929, Page 8

“GRAVELY SERIOUS”

PROTECTION OF STATf INDUSTRIES

“COMMUNISTIC DREAM”

“A gravely serious effect U v. produced on the private Industrie r? of the country in consequence oi, taxation of Governmental and eipal t ratling concerns in Newv land.” w

This opinion was expressed bv « George Eliott, chairman of the L.v land Gas Co., Ltd., at the annual® *” ing of the company to-day He ’ ferred to municipal trading as a munistic dream. Land and intW tax and local rates paid bv this cn» pany amounted to £25.799 X9 S Sd 1 year, and is equal to old a 1 000 , on the total amount of gas sold" h said. "In other words, sas-users it Auckland paid 5Jd a thousand on »n the gas they consumed bv way of • direct taxation. Users of elect?” light ancl power, on the other W> c paid nothing, owing to the fact ««. with, perhaps, one exception, Govern ment or municipal trading concern” are exempt from taxation.

“Rates and taxes are, of coims. necessary to carry on the activities ? the country and why a Governmental n munieipallv-owned industrv should hi exempt is beyond comprehension. tT present state of affairs means that th burden must be carried bv the private trader, and since Government and municipal activities are being „ tended, the burden will increase a? may become unbearable.

“If there is one thing that'sapg th, vitality of a nation more than anotbV it is paternalism in government," con eluded the speaker. “It puts a’braki on the wheels of industry; it c lo«s. the door on individual effort. “Unless some Government, son.,, day, awakes to the futility of thi Communistic dream, it can only be ' question of time till certain large cot’ cerns, apart altogether from the aindustry, will be forced seriously to consider closing up the New Zealand portion.”