The Daily News. FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1917. CONSCRIPTING WEALTH.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 June 1917, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1917. CONSCRIPTING WEALTH.

There is nothing more vague than tho constantly recurring call of a section of the community for conscripting wealth. It is a catch cry that sounds well in the ears of the proletariat and is generally, taken to mean "make the capitalists pay." In the abstract, wealth is defined as an abundance of worldly goods, while in a public sense it is applied to all material objects which have economic utility. The latest expounder of the doctrine of conscripting wealth is the member for Timaru, Mr. Craigie, whose avowed object is to provide a fund to cover the Dominion's war expenditure. The details of his scheme need not be reproduced, his main idea being that every man and woman in the community whose possessions in money, land, or property of any kind exceeds £2500 in value should be taxed on the , vein?. This is but another echo of the cry "make the capitalist pay.'\ Many volumes and treatises have been written on this question of the duties and responsibilities of capital, and so will it be to the end of time. However cleverly and logically tho subject may be treated the argument can only Jetu! to one right conclusion, namely, capital needs, labor and labor needs capital. That, however, is not the point under consideration, which is the conscription of wealth, or, put in other words, the drawing upon the wealthy to ease the burdens of the people. We must not lose sight of the fact that there must be equal fairness in dealing with capital as with labor. The doctrine of "hit the other fellow" may be attractive to a section of the community, but it is not justice. All that can rightly be expected of the wealthy is that they Bhall bear their fair share of the national burdens —not that they must shoulder the whole load. Incidentally, the question arises as to where tho line is to bo drawn between what may bo called a reasonable competency and wealth. If we take the income tax as a guide it is found that £3OO a year is the line of demarcation, for up to that amount no tax is payable. If wealth begins there, it will be found that in New Zealand the Government is actively conscripting wealth by means of an income tax ranging from sixpence to one shilling and four pence in the £ in the case of persons and firifl?, and from one shilling to ono shilling and four pence in the pound for registered companies, with a war increase of thirty three and a third per cent., and a further tax of sixpence in the pound on assessable incomes up to £9OO, and one shilling in tho jound on incomes over that amount. There is also a tax of forty-five per cent, on war profits. In addition to the foregoing there arc customs and excise duties and land tax. The mortgage tax has fcoen abolished, but mortgagees have to pay one penny in the pound for land tax, though the amount can be deducted from the sum on which income tax is levied. Land owners are called upon to pay taxation on unimproved value at the rate of one penny in the pound capital value, but when the total unimproved value, less mortgages, does not exceed £ISOO, the owner is allowed an exemption on £SOO, but over £ISOO the exemption diminishes by £1 for every £2 that such value increases, so that no exemption is granted when £2500 is reached When the value exceeds tho graduated mmml t»x ranges up to Ave and five-sixths

pence in tlie pound for land in excess of .€200,000 in value, aiul as part of the war the graduated lax lias been increased by fifty per cent, except in the case of land used as business premises. In the case of those engaged in tlio dairy industry there is also the butter fat levy which is undoubtedly an unjust impost. To most reasonable minds these levies do not leave much room for further encroachments. If capital is to he still further raided there will be an end to industry and the business men would be unable to exist. It is quite another matter with what may be termed unproductive capital which has no economic utility. The Dominion has always nefeded capital for industries, and to tax it out of existence would he fatal to the best interests of ihc country. This idea of a wealth tax as supplementary ! to all other taxes is the acme of foolhardiuess. To play tricks with the working capital of the country would he a most dangerous ■'olicy—whether ffiat capital is invested in land, business .01 any industry. The country would stagnate and become impoverished. Moreover, there is no valid reason why the people of to-day should bear the whole of the financial burden of the war, which will benefit posterity quite as much as ourselves. Taxation is already pressing heavily on the dairying industry as well as on the small farmers. If the burdens we have to bear are equitable there is no reason for complaint, and the energies of economical reformers should be directed to that end. "Make the capitalists pay" is in the abstract a demand showing both lack of resource and a woeful want of sense of the eternal principles of right and justice.