BUTTER-FAT LEVY.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 April 1921, Page 6

BUTTER-FAT LEVY.

LABOR PARTY’S ATTITUDE. (Contributed.) Speaking at Wakamara on Saturday night, Mr. J. McCombs M.P., made reference to the fact that it was a Liberal Minister of Agriculture who singled out the dairy farmer for a special levy or tax to provide an equalisation fund to keep down the price of butter to consumer, rich and poor alike. This special class tax was levied on cheese producers as well as butter producers for the benefit in some cases of wealthy merchants and wealthy business men in the cities. The Labor party did not object to an equalisation fund being established for the purpose of keeping down the prices of the necessaries of life, but it maintained that such a fund should be created by a general levy on all those who were enjoying increased returns as the result of war prices and further, that the ordinary principles governing taxation'on a graduated scale should be made to apply with the usual exemptions of income up to £3OO a year. The speaker claimed that the N.Z. Dairyman paid him the compliment that his, the speaker’s articles on the question were the best statement of the case for the dairy farmer that had been published. When Mr. Massey took over the portfolio of agriculture he continued the tax, and was with the utmost difficulty persuaded to abolish the tax and it \yas with still greater difficulty that he was finally induced to refund' a tax that had been most unjustly imposed on the most hard working and deserving section of the producers. On the Butter Prices Investigation Committee of the session last while not accepting the fancy calculations which claimed to show that it c’ost 3s to produce a pound of butter fat S|ie labor representatives on the com mi t uee agreed that as the other producers h£4 always received the full market valu&.of their produce there was no reason wh/ |he dairy farmer should be subjected to a Afferent set of principles. Therefore in accordance with the principles which the Labor Party had consistently stood for in the interests of the dairy farmer and of the consumer the Labor party moved and supported the following motion in Parliament: “That the retail price of butter, cash over the counter be Is 9d per pound, and that an equalisation fund be created by a levy of 5 per cent, addition to the Land' and Income Tax and an increase in death duties calculated to produce the equivalent of 5 per cent, on the total.” lied the Labor Party’s proposal been adopted the retail price of butter to the New Zealand consumer would never have gone to 2s 3d or 2s 6d per pound. The butter producer would have received the full market value of his product while the equalisation tax or levy would be so widespread as to be scarcely felt. The business or professional man in the city .with an assessable income of £lOOO a year would only have had to contribute an extra £3 10s 8d per year, which, if he was a family man would probably save twice over by getting his butter at Is 9d per pound instead of 2s 3d. It would only have been on income considerably over £lOOO a year that the tax would have been appreciably felt. It should I*l noted that it was the Labor Party and not the Liberals or Reformers that fought for justice for the dairy farmer -jvhile trying to secure for the consumer butter at Is 9d a pound. The Labor Party’s proposal was constructive, practical, scientific and just, whereas the Liberal and Tory expedients were clumsy, unstatesmanlike and exceedingly unjust. At the conclusion of the meeting on the motion of Mr. J. Gulliven, seconded by Mr. C. Dobson, the speaker was accorded a very hearty vote of jbanks.