The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, MAY 2.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 391, 2 May 1879, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, MAY 2.

As we remarked last week, the Assembly has some very serious business before it which must be dealt with during the forthcoming Session. Some of the legislation of last Session will need revision, and many measures that failed to achieve maturity will have to be brought forward again. Among the former may be mentioned the Land Tax Act. It is now, we think, generally, admitted that the principle of this tax is a right one, but that considerable modifications in the details of its collection will be necessary. It is felt that the exemption is either a mistake altogether, or at any rate is fixed at far too high a limit. The very numerous exemptions cause great expense in the collection of the tax, as each little bit of property has to be carefully valued, though the great majority prove to be exempt. We are disposed to think that it would be perfectly equitable and just to abolish the exemptions altogether, except that of improvements. If a man owns a bit of land, if only a quarter acre section, he is so far better off than he who owns none, and can afford to contribute proportionally to the necessities of the State, One avowed object of the impost being to discourage the acquisition of overgrown estates, held for speculative purposes, in the hands of individuals, it is worthy of consideration whether it would not be well to increase the rate after a certain limit had been reached. Let the small holder pay a minimum rate, instead of being exempt altogether, and let the large proprietor be charged an increased rate proportionate to the extent of his possessions.. By this means a much larger sum would be receivable from this source and proportionately greater remissions could be made in those taxes, which admittedly press unduly upon the wage-earning class.

The Electoral Bill, which was dropped last Session will also come up in some form for consideration. By a very roundabout process the Bill in question conferred what practically amounted to manhood suffrage, the qualification being simply a residential one. We believe that a majority of the House and country is prepared to sanction this basis of representation. If so, why not sweep away all existing qualifications and substitute this one? The plan would have the advantage of simplicity, and would have precisely the same effect as adding another to the already numerous qualifications, with one exception< As a man cannot resfde simultaneously in two or more districts, it follows that by adopting this qualification every man would have a vote, and no more than one. This is precisely what Sir George Grey promulgated as a cardinal point in his policy while on his celebrated stumping tour, and we think the supporters of his policy have a right to expect thai he will submit a measure embodying this principle.

Closely connected with Electoral Reform is the matter of the re-distribution of seats ; in fact, the two measures may be looked upon as parts of one whole. It is of little use giving every man a vote, if by reason of inequalities in the division of districts, a single vote in one part of the colony has as much weight as three or four in another. This is a more difficult question to settle than the former, as there is not merely an abstract principle to be affirmed, but, in order to carry it out, a number of petty details must be attended to, which are sure to provoke local jealousies. Abstractly speaking, few will be found to deny that representation should be allotted "according to population. , ' But when the principle comes to be applied, certain difficulties, real and imaginary, will assuredly arise. Geographically, certain distiicts have certain well-defined natural boundaries which seem to forbid amalgamation with other places, and yet their population would only entitle them to a fractional part of a representative. The greatest practical difficulty, however, in the way of proportioning representation to population lies in the fact that, if it were done, the towns would be found entitled to a very considerable increase in the number of their representatives. This difficulty, though in the present state of opinion it will prove real enough, we venture to class among the imaginary ones. Once admit the principle that numbers should be represented, and we fail utterly to see why a hundred men, because they live in a city, should only possess one-half or one-third of the voting power accorded to another hundred who are denizens of the country. At the root of the fear entertained of large towns being endowed with their fair proportion of representation lies the old truly British veneration for the landowner, dating from the feudal times, and preserved through centuries of supremacy of a territorial aristocracy. Numerous other questions which must come before the Assembly we are compelled to defer consideration of for the present.