A FEW COMMONSENSE ANSWERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 December 1922, Page 7

A FEW COMMONSENSE ANSWERS.

NOT BY MR. MASSEY. In a recent issue of the King Country Chronicle, supporters of Mr. W. T. Jennings inserted an article dealing with the sins of commission and omission by the Government. The article was headed. “Published by Arrangement.” Following is the Reform Party s re* ,ply:— Dear Mr. Published by Arrangement— You ask us t© believe you more diffident than is really credible. Surely it would have been fairer to ask those questions of Mr. Massey personally at his meeting than to publish them when he was hundreds of miles away and could never hear .your timorous questioning. One has a haunting suspicion that your diffidence was, in fact, fear. Mr. Massey has a nasty habit, one knows, of standing four square on facts and hitting untruth hard when it comes up to him. That is rather hard for the questioner at a public meeting when the innuendo lie suggests by his question is untrue. Well, we won’t investigate your assumed diffidence any further But your facts are wrong, and the suggestions you found upon those facts are, of course, necessarily wrong too Let us have a look at the true facts. The pubi lie debt, as you say, is £219,000,000. To j ascertain the increase under the Reform Government which you claim is not attributable to war conditions we must deduct £100.000.000 as the cost to the country of the war. You accept that figure, you say. Then we must deduct £84.353,013, the amount of the public debt when Reform took charge. That leaves an increase of £3'4,646.987. And you say Reform is to blame for that! Are you really serious? If you arc. then you may be a “Liboral-Laborite” but you are no true Liberal. That just the trouble with your party these days. It is parading in a cast-off suit of old Liberalism, but the mantle of true Liberalism has fallen on the shoulders of Reform. That is why the arguments and criticisms of your loaders are so puny and weak and altogether unavailing. It is why your old party supporters like Mr. Vigor Brown are enmina over to us. It is wny staunch old Liberals like Mr. McCallum and Mr. Witty and the others decline to follow Mr. Wilford, whom vou offer to the country as your head. It is why an old, trusted and reverend Liberal leader like Sir John Findlay is constrained to say that M? Massey is tne only man who can govern the country to-day It is why the country sees through vour little pretence, and incidentally it is all conclusively proved ny the explanation of how that increased public debt of £34.646.987 arose. Do you know that during the Massey regime the annual expenditure of the country has increased, not according to any politician, hut according to a report from the Secretary of the Treasury as laid before the last Parliament, by £R,205.365 annually. Do you get that. Mr. Published hy Arranßempnt “annually?” Yes. you are quite right to ask whv. This is the answer: The increa'-

cd war pensions now aggregate £I,RSS.j 663. The increased grants to the National Provident Fund and to friendly i societies aggregate £6687; the civil serl vice got £4,500,-000 by way of cost of ! living increases; the cost of living bonuses to annuitants is £78.689; the I increased grants on account of cost of living to old-age pensioners, military and mining pensioners is £599,469, and those ere only some. Tf you want more they can he given you. But do you want any more? Perhaps that is not so material as the question. “Do you want these increased grants or any of them cut down? If von do then you are no true Liberal. If you do not then yon must not complain if the accumulation is made manifest in the public debt. Are you surprised, in the face of such figures and facts as these, the country and many of the members of your own old Liberal Party, and even your old Liberal Ministers, are hailing Mr. Massey as the true successor to the spirit of Liberalism ? Do you not realise that the people of this country are judging this man by his acts and joining up with him? But of course you do! That is why you are driven to say that the taxation is too high and to draw the comparison with Australia. But you really must not say at one .and the same time that you want all these increased grants, and that you want reduced taxation too. That is only possible, as Mr. Massey truly says, by increased production, i Above all. though, Mr. Published by Arrangement. you must not tell those little half truths that are the worst kind of lies. Now why did yon say our taxation here was £lB Ils Jet a head as against £8 13s 9d in Australia? That was really very, very wicked of you, but no one is -misled, and you only expose the badness of your case bv such little artifices. You are intelligent, of course—we will agree upon that—• then you must know that in Australia there is a- State as well as a Commonwealth taxation. Then you really should not have quoted the Commonwealth figures only and failed to mention the State figures at all. That was very wicked of you, and shows that there is still need of “the square deal” which is the foundation of Reform.

Just so that you shall never err in that way again, please take a note or the true facts. For the financial year 1921-22 the taxation per head in New Zealand was £l2 14s 7d. The Australian Commonwealth taxation was £l3 | Is per head for 1920-21—the last year’s .' figures are not available—and the State 1 taxation, on the average of the six J States, was £3 7s 3d in addition. That ; makes £l6 8s 3d, or £3 13s Sd per j head in excess of ours. Now please , don’t descend to those little games any ' more: and when you next discuss taxa- ' tion, as you will, nf course, only next ■ time it will not be quite so openly, , please don’t forget to say that the fol- i lowing is the true comparison between the State grants under the old Liberal Administration as compared with the grants under the Massey Administra- ■ tion: — Widows’ Pensions.—Under Liberal, •> widow with one child £l2 a year, ; maximum pension £3O a year. Under • Reform, widow with one child £39 a year, maximum pension £136 lus. Miners’ Pensions.—Under Liberal, 1 nothing. Under Reform. £1 15s per ! week for married man and £1 5s for i single. Maori War Pensions—Under Liberal. ! nothing. Under Reform. £49 per an- I num. Education.—Under Liberal. £1,294.000 I per annum. Under Reform, £3,573,000 | per annum. Hospital and Charitable Aid Expen- | diture. —Under Liberal, £235.000 per annum. Under Reform. £72’6,000 per , Annum. But there, we will say no more of

that. You are surely unhappy enough by now! But the remedy is simple. Follow (lie best men of your old party and come over to us. You are clinging to an old worn-out shibboleth. Wake up to modern thoughts and conditions, and come where most of the people of New Zealand will be found next Thursday—on the side of the true Liberalism that is called “Reform.” You will be. glad to do it, anyhow, .when it is pointed out to you that all this “Liberal Administration” by Keform has cost the small man nothing. Do you know that no tax is paid on incomes up to £3OO a year, and that with the children’s and other allowances a man can earn an income of £425 a. year and yet pay no tax? Thai is a fact. And there is no British country to-day in respect of which a similar claim can be made.

Your mention of Australia suggests you have been investigating the conditions there. You will therefore know it to bo « fact that in Australia in- | CQmes of £2OO have to pay an income tax of £3 3s 4d if the taxpayer, has no dependents, or £1 <6s 6<l if he has, irrespective of the number dependent upon him. A man with dependents there pays a, tax of £5 Is 7d on an income of £3OO, or £7 7s 8d if lie has th> dependents. ami so on up the scale. You are lucky to be in New Zealand, Mr. Published by Arrangement, and to be under the Reform Government. You see the Australians have been governed by Labor, and yet the Government could not do as much for the small man—the working man, if you will—as our own Reform Government has done for him. And now I am laughing, Mr. Published by Arrangement, laughing so that I can hardly write. Your “economical administration” stunt did it. Now that was just what the Yankees call “a wonuerful idea.” Why, goodness me, where do you come from? Do you ever read a newspaper? Have you never heard that Mr. Massey has cut down expenditure by £2,441,884 per annum? But that, is correct’. There is something more important. though. Have you not heard that Mr. Wilford. in the name of his party, agreed to the economies and approved them, and had no suggestion to make concerning them, nor yet any criticism to level at them? When your leaders couldn’t criticise them in the House, as it was their duty if the proposal was capable of criticism, how can you, the humble follower outside the House, suggest that they did not go far enough? Do you want a further cut in the railwaymen’s or civil servants’ wages? If so, we don’t. Now that is plain. And ,you can only economise further, if economise is the right word for it, by cutting down wages. Now would that be according to Liberal principles? It, is not the Reform idea. We want a well paid, contented, and enthusiastic public service, and that, we think, means that wp should pay our public servants as well as wc can possibly afford to pay them. Perhaps, though, you would like more of the men paid off. Well, we wouldn’t. But there there, I won’t annoy yon with your little inconsistencies any further. But of course, as you still claim to represent a “party,” you must say something, even if that something is sometimes silly and the rest of the time untrue. Apropos of that, it is quite silly to say your platform contains a plank that in some weird way will stop traders from adding their taxation on to the cost price of their goods. A profiteer ,is a man who makes an unreasonably high profit. But it surely is not profiteering to add Customs duties and other like State charges to the cost of goods. To suggest otherwise is too absurd. You might just as well suggest that a trader should not take his rent or hi«s staff expenses into account. Or do you seriously suggest to the electors of New Zealand that if the Liberal Party is returned into power it will pass legislation to compel merchants and storekeepers and other traders to sell below or at cost price? . Now that is a wise thing, isn’t it? But that is what you must mean, because if a trader cannot add the taxation he pays on his goods to his cost price then he must sell at a loss.

■ My dear Mr. Published by Arrangement. I shudder to think how cruelly bad your case is when you are driven Io that kihd of expedient to get votes. Wliy not go one little bit further and legislate for the elimination of all trade and commerce altogether? That course might earn you a few more Socialistic votes than any present Liberal-Labor co-ordination can bring you. The Reform policy is too sane, too far-seeing, too anxious to help people up rather than pull them down to join with you in an attempt to accomplish any of these dreamy objectives that your own destitution of policy has driven you to adopt.

The State Bank is one of these little hallucinations of yours. In the first place the Bank of New Zealand is nearly our own now. We have four directors appointed by the Government out of six, and wc get £581,000 a year in taxation out. of it. Why run opposition to it? And if your party were in power and did run opposition, could you do any good? The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is a State Bank. It pays no revenue to either the State r.r Commonwealth, has not reduced interest, and actually charges the Government more for the business it does for it- than any of the other banks charged whilst the Government dealt With them. Senator Fairbairn pointed that out in the Australian Senate on September 13 last. Do we want any more of the State Bank? That must settle the idea, even in your mind. If it doesn't, please \lo ask yourself this question: i “If the State Bank idea is such a fine I thing, why didn’t the Liberal Party take it up during the long 21 years it i was’in power? No friend, this Is no : time for financial experiments. We must i stick tight to the old ship as long as : she carries us, as she is doing well and ! truly. When we are safe in harbor we con try out, the small boats, if you will, but they are now a last resource. Being bankrupt of other policy, your people are rashly anxious to make one big gamble to avoid political bankruptcy. Don’t you join them? Tnar sort of thing brings a trader under the penal clauses of the Bankruptcy Act, and to a political party it spells political death. Don't you see it is like putting your last £5 note on a horse race when your children want £5 worth of food at home. Friend, the people, of New Zealand are too wise to join you in (bat kind of speculation. They will keep on the safe and sure course, and that is on the road arm and arm with Reform.

Cannot you see that just that same spirit of political gambling suggests the proportional representation scheme? It is no new thing. Mr. Fowlds, one of ?;our Liberal Ministers, ha<s advocated it for years. Yet when Liberalism Was triumphant in its majority it would have none of it. The Labor Government in New South W’ales tried it. Mr. Dooley, the ex-Lftbor Premier, who was in New Zealand lately, condemned it

roundly, and so does every other Australian politician. The electorates are too large, and the members can recognise no particular locality in their charge. Then you see it lets in, if it does not actually create, “machine poli- . tics.” They are best, left to America Ito deal with. The best organised crowd i wins anyhow by virtue of the plumping 1 that goes on, and in the end experience I has proved that a muddled House is j elected by a befogged and much muddled electorate, and neither the elector nor the elected knows where he is. No, friend Published by Arrangement, however poor your political clothes may be, please don’t array yourself in any of tile rejected and cast-off clothing from overseas. Tell your people to wake up. to be bright, and to bring along some really good idea that will legitimately serve its end, and we are with you every time. And now, friend Published by Armngement, that you are instructed in all these matters and can view the affairs of our country fairly and intelligently, it is unnecessary to tell you that to secure squareness and economy of administration, and to keep the country on the fair road to prosperity, all you need to do is to vote for Rolleston, and thereby for Reform.—Yours very siaeerelv, REFORM LIBERAL. —Advt.