Mad Finance!

Country Earns £54,000, But Govt. Demands £67,000

From a Special Correspondent

Nukualofa, Aug. 4.

THE Queen’s speech at the opening of the 1939 Session of the Tongan Par liament on August 1, indicates that no alleviation of the heavy taxation imposed during more prosperous times can be looked for.

The estimated expenditure for the year to June 30, 1940. is the colossal sum (for a small community) of £80,167, of which £67,789 is to be raised by taxation and £12,656 appropriated from accumulated surplus. These are the figures to be sub mitted for passing by Parliament, and with the Government’s majority of offi cials and nominated members already assured, no doubt they will go through, as they have done for so many years, irrespective either of equity or justice.

With copra (the only product apart from a few cases, of bananas) bringing in at current rates a total income to the natives of about £50.000 per annum, and about £4,000 from bananas, whence does the Government expect to get its £67,789 of estimated revenue? What sort of mad or callous finance is it that budgets for more than the country produces?