SOME POINTS OF INTEREST.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 October 1918, Page 4

SOME POINTS OF INTEREST.

To the Editor. Sir, —A political address was given • by Mr Connett at the Frankley Road factory on Wednesday, October 2nd. In the course of i.'.s address lie made the following statement, that "the amount of the X.Z, war debt was over forty and by the time he, next loan was called up, he had no doubt it would be over fifty millions." Ha also stated that the customs duties had been increased by five hundred thousand pounds, roughly speaking about ten shillings per" head. Well, Sir, we have sent thousands of soldiers to the war to fight for the protection of our homes and property, including the fifty] millions lent to the New Zealand Government. Thousands have lost their lives, thousands are coming home broken in health, manyi maimed. Wihen they, get back they find the fifty of money is the only part of the wealth: in New Zealand that is paying nothing for its own protection. Wealthy men have put in as much as fifty thousand! pounds, earning an income of two thousand two ihundred and fifty pounds fred of taxation. Men with large families will have to pay an additional four or five pounds per annum, and when th«i soldier returns home he finds he will be tai«d to make up the shortage that should have been collected from the fifty millions. As the money lent return# two and a quarter millions it should certainly pay something. One hears- a toff about equality of sacrifice. If the above is that I should not like the Government to get inequality of sacrifice on to us. Thera is another subject of interest to the small farmer. There is • hardly a day but what one sees reports in the papers either from Ministers of the Crown or leading citizens urging thai farmers to produce more. As they say, Dbe produce of the country will have to pay the national debt, which is quit® true. This is how the National Government is helping the production. Egyptian ephos manure was landed in Wellington at three pounds seventeen shillings per ton, and the price quoted to the farmer was seven pounds ten shillings per ton on the trucks in Wellington, a rise of nearly one hundred per cent on the landed cost. The dairy , farmer has his prices fixed for him. Not so the merchant, who charges what he likes, with the ihigh prices charged for manure unchecked by the National Government. I should say they were trying to stop t extra production, to say nothing of the way the farmer is being robbed. No wonder there is dissatisfaction, and I consider any farmer who supports tlio National Government is asking for another butter-fat tax.- —I am, etc., LEONARD HILL. Hurworth.