Cromwell Argus. AND NORTHERN GOLD-FIELDS GAZETTE. CROMWELL: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3.

Cromwell Argus, Volume II, Issue 99, 3 October 1871, Page 4

Cromwell Argus. AND NORTHERN GOLD-FIELDS GAZETTE. CROMWELL: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3.

Taking into consideration the unsatisfac toiy state of the Colonial finances, as disclosed by the Treasurer’s Statement, it was hardly to be expected that the motion for the reduction of the export duty on gold would meet with much support in the Assembly, and we were therefore not at all surprised at the opposition it received, nor at the conclusion arrived at by the House that no reduction in the duty was at present advisable. We admit that the duty on gold does not individually press very hardly on miners : but at the same time, everyone who thinks at all on the subject must also admit that the imposition of this tax is wrong in principle. Miners are not now the nomadic individuals they once were ; and the mining industry may be looked upon as a means of earning a livelihood quite as steady and fixed as can be earned by farming, wool-growing, or any other industry. It was probably only right that in the early days of the diggings, when thousands of persons flocked to our shores with the express intention of geting all the gold they could and then leaving us in the lurch to spend it in more favoured climes, that an export duty should be placed upon the precious metal, in order that our revenues might derive some compensation for the treasure that was being taken away. But now the case is quite altered. There is no reason why gold should be subjected to an export duty any more than wool, cereals, and other colonial produce. Miners do not earn such high wages as to warrant a special tax being levied on the article of commerce which brings them in their daily bread ; as a settled portion of the population of the Colony, they are entitled to the same rights and privileges as other classes in the matter of free trade. Although the question has been decided against them by the Assembly this session, there can be no doubt that in time it will bo regarded in its proper light, and that gold will bo a s free from restrictions as an article of commerce as other colonial products. While on this subject wo cannot help noting the remarks of one or ’two members of the House when speaking to the motion. We find Mr Reynolds, who strongly opposed the motion, expressing his opinion that it was questionable whether the discovery of gold had not done New Zealand more harm than good; and another Otago member (Mr .Muf.f.at, the. member for Bruce),

who will ever be held in high estimation by the miners of the Colony- in recognition of his liberal (?) views, “ bitterly attacking miners generally," and, as the correspondent of our leading provincial journal puts it, “ evidently of opinion that they ought to be taxed more heavily, instead of being relieved from any of their present burdens.” This narrow-minded individual—this chosen luminary of the electors of Bruce—and others of a like calibre, by their utterances in the Assembly bring our representatives as a body into disrepute, and hence the very light estimation in which Otago members, as a rule, are held. It seems utterly impossible to get our