DR. FINDLAY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9549, 22 July 1909, Page 5

DR. FINDLAY.

SPEECH AT DUNEDIN. By Telegraph —Press Association. DUNEDIN, July 21. The Hon. Dr. Findlay addressed a large meeting here this evening. The Minister said New Zealand was far in advance of most other countries in the matter of progressive legislation, and the ideal which he • and others kept steadily in view was ' higher civilisation, morally, physic- 1 ally and intellectually. The chief | function of the State was to meet men and women and make them mote effective members of our social system. giving them freedom of < pportunity. Uplift the people |by raising ' the individual standard. They should i begin at the bottom with the prisoners in the gaol?, and make them ' better citizens, and also with the lowest dies and determine how the waste of health, wealth and work could best be restricted. The waste of wor.c was the most important matter f?r the State. They lately hid evice .ces of unemployment, and J while this represented the loss of 1 wealth it meant greater loss in the shape o: demoralisation of character arising from a feeling of despair and resulting in intemperance, ineptitude and loss of fitness. The Government should aim to bring wi.hin the rea:h of the willing j worker the means to equip himself to ; earn a livelihood. The Government j was about to come to the a'd of the j labourer without capital by placing him on the land for which under certain conditions he would not be asked to pay rent for fitteen months, i There was no more difficult or dangtrous path for State action than artificial inteiference with the distribution of wealth, but it was the State's duty to enforce, if possible, a more equitable and fair distribution of wealth. A start had been made already, and more would be done by altering the death duties and taking care that where men made money it shoul.l not pass into the hands of the man who had not made it, and who squandered idly. Waste from the misuse and non-use of land was probably greater htre than anywhere else. Speaking with regard to the death duties he said they may serve two purposes, revenue to the State, and a distribution of wealth. The defects in the New Zealand duties lay in there being no uniform graduation of the rat°, as was shown by the fact that an estate of £5.000 pays £175, and one of £5,001 pavs £350. The graduation should proceed on a uniform tlovvly a?cending scale, like the graduated laud tax with a surtax on a share taken b> any one individual when it exceeds & certain amount.