ABOUT PARLIAMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 October 1915, Page 2

ABOUT PARLIAMENT.

(Prom Our Own Correspondent). WAft TAXATION. Wellington, September 29. It would be very far from tine to say that the Government's amended taxation proposals, which got through the House shortly after five o'clock this morning, met with the unanimous approval of members. Sir Joseph WanP stated the position very fairly when he said it would have been impossible for any Government, representing only one side of the House, to get these through at all. Perhaps he would have represented it still more accurately if he had said that but for the war no Government would have got this through. The one per cent, primage duty on imports is obnoxious to three-fourths of the members, who say, probably with some truth, that by the time it has been passed on to the consumer through the merchant and the retailer it will amount to a much larger percentage. One per cent, on a pound of tea will be about threefifths of a farthing, and if the merchant and the retailer each convert this fraction into a penny the charge will have risen to ten or eleven per cent. In the case of many other articles the pass, ing-on process may have a still more disagreeable result for housewives. COST OP LIVING. . ! The evil tendencies of the primage duty, as they appeaT to some of the critics, have led to the more insistent demand for the appointment of a Commission, with wide powers, for the re- ; guidon of priees. It is being recalled] that the Commission set up under the legislation of last session did practically nothing to protect the consumer. There was much told about the price of wheat, and much expenditure in malting superfluous enquiries, but the price of bread went soaring up without the least regaxd to the good intentions of the Government or the tardy recommendations of the vacillating Commission. The general opinion here is that a single Commissioner, to be a capable and reliable business man, clothed with all the authority, of a thorough-faced autocrat, is the only power that ean save the unhappy consumer from the accumulating primage duty as it is pressed along. FORBIDDEN GROUND. Of course the many-featured taxation proposals have provoked warm discussions in the lobbies (and elsewhere), as to which party represented in the Cabinet is responsible for this impost, and which, for it is admitted by the loudest critics that Sir Joseph Wajrd has "played the game" admirably all through the piece. He has never hinted at a personal excuse for the Cabinet's proposal. The most he has permitted himself is to remind the House that a National Mifijistry, made up of different party elements, must proceed by compromise and conciliation. This morning he took some of his critics rather severely to task for having forgotten this fact, and gave then* to understand that the taxation proposals had been framed with a view to produce revenue, and not for the purpose of advancing the creed of any particular party. "We are not," he said, "introducing into this legislation any of those knotty problems that will be required to be settled in the future. We Me pimply making provision for raising the extra revenue that is essential, in what we believe to be the best possible way." END OF THE SESSION. It is now confidently predicted that the session will be brought to a close by the end of nest week. This will necessitate the slaughter of a number of "innocents" that would have been spared under other circumstances, hut members are in no humor for routine work, and till the war passes the critical stage they will be of almost as mudh use at home as they ean be here.