COST OF LIVING.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 June 1920, Page 5

COST OF LIVING.

EX-SOLDIERS MAKE PROTESTS. GOVERNMENT ACTION URGED. By Telejraph—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. A public meeting called by the Returned Soldiers' Association considered the cost of living question, and passed several lengthy resolutions, including the following: "That this meeting believes that the intolerable increase in the cost of living is largely due to conditions thai can be controlled by the. Government, and therefore calls upon Cabinet and Parliament to take immediate steps to reduce paper currency, to impose a levy on all war profits, and grant by legiskWon the iright ;to duly authorised oflicers to inspect the invoices and books of any trader, so as to ensure immediate detection of any profiteering."

"That this meeting calls upon tlio Government to control profits by filing a standard rate of interest for each class of business and industry, to reduce the customs duties on the necessaries of life, and to increase the duties on certain luxuries to cheapen, by means of an export tax and the control of prices, the cost of butter and meat, and to plato an export tax on wool. That the income tax on companies manufacturing necessaries of life he abolished, and that a yearly bonus of at least £lO for -each child be paid to families having incomes under .-e'2so per year." Other resolutions called upon the Government to appoint a Minister for Housing, to stop land aggregation, to increase the land tax to acquire compulsorily land suitable for settlement, to re-value all land for taxation purposes, and to stop all speculative trafficking in land.

The local president of the Returned Soldiers' Association said that the Association would take charge of the resolutions and press them persistently on the attention of the Government.