WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 September 1921, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

. A POLITICAL REVIVAL. BUSINESS MEN INTERESTED. (Special Correspondent.) Wellington, Sept. 7. Among the cheering signs of the times are the growing interest of business men in the political affairs of the country and the increasing readiness of the whole community to discuss public questions from the national rather than from the party point of view. The first may be due to the growing burden of taxation, which presses heavily upon commercial interests, and the second to the broader outlook engendered by the demands of war and emphasised by the necessities of peace. The two tendencies, whatever their origin, are particularly noticeable just now in Wellington where business men were wont to look askance at politics and the great body of citizens to ally themselves with one party or another with only a superficial regard for the principles they accepted. One effect of the change has been to remove much of the former asperity from the discussion of public questions and public men. The captious party spirit of the past may not be dead, but outside the ranks of extreme Labor it is sleeping so soundly that its awakening seems, at worst, a catastrophe of the far distant future.

SYMPATHETIC CRITICISM. In these circumstances it has been comparatively easy for business men to get together and discuss public questions within their sphere with a knowledge and understanding rarely at the disposal of the Government and the State. They may differ from the Government on many points, but having set party politics, in the narrow sense, aside they can present their view of any particular problem free from the personal bias of the partisan. The taxation of companies, for instance, is one of the subjects with which many of them are necessarily familiar. They are not railling at the Government for perpetuating an inequitable application of the income tax to corporate bodies of investors, small and large; but they are pointing out to Ministers that the system in addition to being grossly unjust to many shareholders in many companies is "a very grave menace to the commercial and industrial development of the country. If people who have a. few hundreds or a few thousands invested in enterprises of this description remain liable to an exorbitant rate of taxation, whether their means are little or big. it is certain they will in increasing numbers looks around for other employment for their money.

MINISTERIAL ADMISSIONS. That the representations made by the business men, and endorsed almost unanimously by the Press of the Dominion. have not fallen on deaf ears, has Jbeen made abundantly clear. Mr. Massey, having had the facts placed before him, stated at the beginning of the year that something would have to be done to relieve the companies of the unfair burden they were carrying. Since 1 then, it is true, the Prime Minister’s locum tenons has said it would bo impossible to collect the tax from the individual shareholders instead of from the companies and so remove much of the injustice of the system; but, with characteristic loyalty to his officers, We obviously was quoting the opinion of the Financial head of Ihe Depart,mm? who apparently thought a little ext r a labor in his office might he legitimately described as an impossibility. The system demanded by the business community has been in operation in England and in Australia for years past and, so far as can he ascertained from the best sources of information, costs no more than does the system in operation here. FOR THE SMALL MAN.

Sir Francis Bell, scarcely appreciating the spirit in which representations had been made to him on the subject, aiso implied that it was the i-t■vigers of companies and the large 'holders who were chiefly eonceri. in the change in the incidence of tavation. So far from this being the case it would be the smallest shareholders who would gain most from a just method of assessment. But the business men are not interested in the re-adjustment of taxation alone. They are even more urge'nt in their demand for well ordered economies in the public service. They hold the enormous increase in the departmental expenditure since the conclusion of the war largely responsible for the crushing taxation under which the whole country is staggering and they are anxious to assist the Government in finding means of relief. They believe this expenditure could be reduced by two or three millions without impairing the efficiency of the service in any way and with advantages which would reach every section of the community. Towards this end they offer the Government their heartiest co-operation.

STOPPING THE BREAKAGE. Impelled, no doubt, to some extent by the clamant demand for savings in the public service, Ministers are redoubling their efforts to get rid of every unnecessary item of expenditure. It is a painful and thankless business in which they will have the sympathy of everyone who understands the difficulties that beset their way. But it is becoming more and more obvious as information is obtained that the task must not be confined to retiring a few hundred civil servants whom outsiders have known to be superfluous for years past. There are whole departments, or perhaps one should say sub-departments, which could be swept away with a positive gain in efficiency. Many of these came into existence during the war. when, perhaps, they served some useful and legitimate purpose, but now they could De well spared and such work as remains for them to do transferred to some other department. Whether or not the Government can get through this herculean task without such a commission as the country had forty years ago remains to be seen, but it is certain eternal vigilance on the part of the public never was more urgently needed than it is at the present time.