DAY BY DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17985, 2 April 1930, Page 4

DAY BY DAY.

Commonwealth accounts for the first half of the current Heartless financial year show a and redaction in the reUnpatriotic. ceipts from direct taxation and an extraordinary increase in the receipts from the tariff. There is less coming in from direct taxation because of the depression in business and the shrinkage of the average income of the people (says an Australian paper). There is more Customs money because the section of the community that does not suffer from a depression has been even more extravagant and wasteful than in the past. The salaried classes, including our army of civil servants, are better off in a period of depression than in a season of prosperity, because rents, clothing, food, and all the necessaries of life are cheaper at such a time. We have a sliding scale of wages in some industries to accommodate the wage to the cost of living. Why cannot we have a similar sliding scale for civil service salaries, so that the cost of government would automatically adjust itself in time of depression? And why cannot we have a special wealth tax that will catch the classes that actually profit by the people’s misfortunes? Nero Addling while Rome burned may be a strong illustration, yet it is definitely suggested by the heartless and unpatriotic luxury class, whose money is going out of the country to support the people of other nations while good Australians are tramping the bush in the baffling search for work.