THE BUDGET.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1857, 2 June 1888, Page 4

THE BUDGET.

Thb Budget proposals of the Colonial Treasurer can hardly be said to have taken the public altogether by surprise, as there was a general conviction that there would be an ugly deficit to be made good, and that proposals for increased taxation were inevitable. But many persons will scarcely have been prepared to find that the gap as between the revenue and the expenditure was so wide, ant! it is startling indeed to find that for the past two years we have been going to the bad at the rate of a quarter of a million a year. This, of course, would not havo occurred had Sir Julius Vogel's tariff, two sessions ago, been agreed to, and bo far, therefore, from laying the occurrence of the deficit at : the doors of the Stout- Vogel party, the party at present m power have a right to take to themselves the credit or discredit of bringing about the existing state of things. Indeed, it is a curious commentary upon the action of the House m dispensing with the StoutYogel Ministry, and roplacing them by an Atkinson Administration, that m less than eight months after the advent of their Ministry to office, they should themselves present proposals, . not only m the precise direction of those by the rejection of which they climbed to office, but actually going much farther than these, for if the Yogel Budget of 1887 was Protectionist, so also is the Atkinson Budget of 1888, the only difference being that the latter is more Protectionist still. We do not quarrel with the tariff proposals on that account, but they unquestionably cut the ground Uogether from under the feet of those who. supported Sir H. Atkinson as the antithesis of Sir J. Yogel. It is the old story that " Pompey and Cajsar are very much alike, especially Pompey," but while we approve of the tariff being bo framed as to encourage local industries and productions, we are bound to say that the total* amount of additional taxation proposed is, m our opinion, unnecessarily large, and that m its incidence it is unfair, because calculated to press unduly upon the lower and middle classes. Property should have been called upon to bear a fairer proportion ot the general burden, and that burden itself might, we think, have been considerably decreased. We do not hesitate to say that under the circumstances a school fee for the higher standards should be imposed, and we think also it would be wiser policy to discontinue the subsidies to local bodies than to impose a crushing burden of taxation to enable those subsidies to be continued. By taking these measures and carrying out the policy of retrench ment still further than it has been, th.o amount required to be raised couldi ho reduced by £100,000, while instoad. ofi the objectionable tea duty, we would substitute an increase of the duty on beer. Malfc, hops and sugar are nearly or quite fifty per cent cheaper, than they were when the beer duty was first im posed, and if the duty were doubled it would not press anjft more severely o T a the brewers than, Uio- pircsent duty did when the ar,ticloß were at higher r a tes Altogether,, theu, the tariff proposals qannot be regarded as satisfact O ry and they will doubtless meet with very sharp and; severe criticism. Jf thr y bo carried tf will, of course, be rather by the aid' of the votes of the Opposition members than of those of the Oovernment party, from which very largo secessions have occurred, and indeed it is quito on tto cards that they will not bo carried at all, but that ero many days are o?or, * new Ministry will have the task of/ presenting a new Budget to the. Sbuse andi the countryj