TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9225, 24 June 1909, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

THE HEADLESS MINISTRY. The fact that Mr Mackeniza is to remain an honorary Minister while there i* a vacancy in the Government for a salaried Minister is certainly singular, remarks the "Otago Daily Times." A possible explantion is that the Prime Minister has become aware that a strong section of his party in Parliament is opposed to the presence of Mr Mackenzie in the Government at all, and further that he has concluded that the existence of a vacancy in the Cabinet when he returns may render some expectant supporters more amenable to discipline than might otherwise be the case

AMAZING ANTAGONISM,

Considering that the Government can offer Dreadnoughts without consulting Parliament, can suspend Parliament to allow Sir Joseph Ward to go to England and can pass any Finance Bill required without any difficulty, does anybody believe they could not have arranged for the employment of private surveyors if there had been the slightest administrative desire to push on land settlement? After the appointment of Mr Carroll as acting Prime Minister and of Mr Buddo as acting Minister of Lands, says the "New Zealand Herald," it is hardly necaessary to say what the amazing antagonism of the Government to a sound sotttlement policy is more pronounced than ever. !

THE AMERICAN VIEW. We shall all have to work very hard during the next few years if we are to live up to the reputation we have gained in America. The American newspapers have been "writing up" our Dreadnought offer. They know'all about it. [lt is going to cost us ten'dolJars a head, but we can

tand it "probably better than any J other country in the world." £"The dominion has a surplus of revenue each year of about 4,000,000 dollars," says one iournal, "so that it will have to mortgage, so to speak, its surplus revenue for the next two years and a-half to build its Dreadnought. That will mean that the expenditure for the great ship will just about exhaust the surplus revenue during the time the ship is are required to build it the little dominion will not have to run in debt a cent, for the construction. This is a showing such as few nations, if any, could make, and probably no other colony of any country could present. It illustrates vividly what the New Zealand idea of prosperity is, and probably the New Zealanders regard their venture as a pretty good advertisement uf living conditions in their land." This sort of admiration is all very well in its way, but now we shall have either to pay for that Dreadnought out of revenue or to disappoint our American friends.

FINANCE ANE EMPIRE. In the "Fortnightly Review," Mr J. Ellis Barker becomes pessimistic as to the financial outlook in Great Britain. He thinks the United Kingdom is coming tc the end of its tether. He endeavours to show that it is by far the most highly taxed country in the world, that it is not the'richest country, and that its wealth is stagnant, if not declining. The corollary is that it will be extremely dangerous for the workers of the nation to increase still further the taxation of the rich. Such taxes fall not on the wealthy fgw, but on the industries in which their money is invested. Death duties are in impost on|wotking capital, and income tax is a permanent charge on production, and therefore on wages. In the last resort all taxation falls on the masses of the people. According to the German Minister of Finance the taxation per head in Great Britain is almost exactly twice what it is in Germany. Kaufman, who has carefully studied local taxation, declares that for every £1 paid under this head by the German, the Englishman has to pay £2 10s. In England taxation on drink and tobacco is five times as high as it is in Germany. Mr Ellis Barker severely handles most of the "prosperity" arguments. British national expenditure has increased by 50 pur cent, in the last 15 years, and Ellis Barker predicts that in another four or five years it must exceed £200,000,000. His panaceas for all this are a Unionist Government, preferential trade, an Imperial Parliamert for the Empire, and the shouldering of the burden of"defence by the colonies.