THE PRESENT SYSTEM OF TAXATION IN THIS COLONY PARTIAL AND UNJUST.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume I, Issue 33, 2 December 1843, Page 2

THE PRESENT SYSTEM OF TAXATION IN THIS COLONY PARTIAL AND UNJUST.

The subject of taxation is generally speaking less understood by the mass of the people than almost any other, and the principles by which it ought to be regulated, are seldom appreciated even by the better informed. Men believe that it is necessary to raise a revenue, and that each must his share towards this object, seeing that each derives some benefit from the Government, for the establishment and maintenance of which it is expended. But like every thing else, there is a right and a wrong way of levying taxes. They may be levied so as to affect the whole people in"a fair, just, and equal manner ; or, they may be made to bear partially and unjustly. One portion of the community being made to pay for the good or bad Government of the whole. Taxes are, generally speaking, very reluetautly paid, and this no doubt arises in a great measure from the fact of the people either deriving no real benefit from the Government, or at aU eyents, not immediately perceiving its advantages. But from whatever cause this feeling has arisen it has been taken advantage of by the rulers or tax imposers ; and every system of taxation has been founded upon its existence. It was in fact, fully and clearly ascertained that the people would sooner permit themselves to be unknowingly robbed of twenty shillings, than they would themselves consent to giye away one shilling, and there are some of the people enlightened on every other subject, who will still uphold this monstrous, and unmanly system. Viewing a Government however, as necessary and essential to the safety and wellbeing of the whole community, it must at once become evident that it is the interest of every man to maintain it ; and as every wise and well regulated, man of business will : take care to make himself acquainted with the manner in which every farthings' value ' of his capital is laid out, so ought every man to know how much he devotes to the maintenance of the Government. If it be right and necessary that each should contribute towards thisobject, then it must be right andneeessary that each should know exactly how much he individually contributes, unless he does this he is not certain that he is not overdone by the rest of the community. And this is precisely the case both at home and in the colonies, those who ought to contribute most towards the maintenance of Government are taxed the least, and those who derive the smallest benefit are taxed the heaviest. The system of indirect taxation has been purposely invented by the rich to deceive and to oppress the people ; this is the easy door through which they find their way into their pockets, and it is not surprising that , they should hold fast by the key. The evil effects of such a system are mani- • fold, and press heavily upon the poor man. We can easily satisfy ourselves of the truth of this by merely alluding to the articles upon which taxes are paid in this colony. — All foreign goods are more or less taxed, but the largest amount of revenue is raised from tea, tobacco, and spirits ; three articles, of which the poOi' man consumes just as much, if not more, than the rich man does. If any person will take the trouble of calculating the duties paid for all imported goods during a certain period, he will find that tobacco and spirits yield a larger revenue in this Colony at least than all the other articles put together, and if he will still further take the trouble of ascertaining the quantities in which these articles are consumed by the rich and the poor, he will find that the latter in reality pay nine tenths of the whole revenue.* The poor tobacco consumer andthe infatuated drunkard are in truth made to pay more for ■ the maintenance of our Government than the rest of the population. This is no less unjust than it is disgraceful. — The taxes paid for the maintenance of a good government ought to bear a precise and fixed proportion to the benefits which each individual derives from it ; — and who would for a moment assert that the foolish drunkard who spends half his time at hard labour, the other half in the public house, the jail or the roads, derives the same benefit from the preservation of order and peace as the wealthy man, whose property is large, and whose life is valuable ? Independent of tlje evil of being partial and unjust, indirect taxation has many other disadvantages. It is in the first place attended with great expense in the collection. The establishment of Customs in this Colony * Ttje duties received m this place for the last three mouths have been, Spirits £480, Tobacco £434 19s., Tea, Coffee, &c, &c,

is kept up at an expense of about one-third of the whole sum collected, but besides the great and useless expense to the public generally, the establishment of Customs has the tendency of encouraging every species of fraud by giving the dishonest aealer a decided and positive advantage over the honest man. — Smuggling under the present system is becoming so general and so extensive, that the Government will be obliged either to abandon Customs altogether, or to establish revenue cutters to cruise along the coast ; a means of prevention which will cost the Colony more than the whole amount of revenue raised from the Customs. In the next place, indirect taxation, or the imposition of duties on all imported goods, has the effect of completely fettering that spirit of commercial enterprise which is the life and soul of every new community. Who can properly estimate the immense amount of injury thatthis Colony itself has sustained through customhouse restrictions and impositions since the establishment of Government in this Colony? Before that time ' our harbours were full of the shipping of all nations, cheaply conveying to us every commodity that we required, and carrying away from us the superabundance of our natural productions in exchange for these articles. The establishment of Customs has however completely extinguished our commerce, — and even the very bread itself which we eat is taxed, and that too before we had time or opportunity to raise it for ourselves. In an old country there may be some excuse for clinging to established systems however bad, but in laying the foundation of a new colony, there was certainly no wisdom in transporting that evil .system which is creating so much mischief at home, and which is likely ere long to end in a revolution. The Corn-law agitation in England at the present moment is nothing more or less than an effort on the part of the better informed of the people to substitute direct for indirect taxation. Free trade in bread is | but the precursor of freedom of trade in every thing else, and if ©nee obtained, as no doubt it .shall be., the system of indirect taxation will immediately be abandoned, and the rulers must look out for some other scheme of raising a revenue to meet the necessary expenditure of the Government. The blind will at once be removed from the eyes of the people, they will perceive that they have ia every respect been robbed by their rulers, and they wall no longer submit to it, they will insist upon keeping the secret key to their own pockets, and the rulers will be obliged to make a, fair positive and direct demand upon every man to contribute knowingly, equally, and impartially of his goods and substance for the maintenance of the general Government. What are the direct taxes then which should be imposed upon the people instead of the present odious, partial, and indirectly levied duties of Excise and Customs ? The first and the most natural would be a general poll-tax. Every man has his life preserved to Mm by the Government, every man's life is valuable to him, the poor man's life is as valuable in this sense as the rich man's, and the tax should consequently be equal, and the rate so small, that every man in the community could pay it without injury to himself. If eyery man were made to pay a tax of this kind, then every man would feel that he had an interest in the Government, and a right to see and to study that it was properly conducted. It may be objected to a poll-tax, that it gives too great power to the Government; but this objection presupposes the existence of a Government irresponsible to the people, and not of their own creating. But if the people were made directly to pay taxes, they would soon and certainly insist upon having a full share in the formation of the Government ; this fact is exceedingly well known to persons in power, and it is one of the very reasons why they object to direct taxation — had the people a voice in the management of Government, there could not be any fear or danger .of their making this tax either burthensome or oppressive. The case of Constantino and the Roman people is frequently quoted, as unfavourable to such a tax as this, but it must always be remembered that the Roman Emperors were despots and the Roman people to a certain extent political slaves. The next and only other tax should be an income and property tax. The preservation of life and property are the professed objects of every Government, and therefore life and property ought to be the direct subjects of taxation. — The tax on property and income [ should be graduated, rising in proportion to the amount of income and the value of the property. This tax is in itself more offensive to the rich at least than the former tax, but this arises merely from the general tendency of men to impose upon one another. Vanity, pride, and other feelings make it unpieasant or disagreeable to a man'to'allow his affairs to be made known to others, but whatever an individual might suffer in feelings of that kind from such a tax as this, society in gen- l

eral would be the gamer — every man's property -would then be esteemed at its worth, and no person could deceive his neighbour by trading upon a false credit. Hypocrisy is just as injurious in the commercial world as it is in the religious or the moral, and direct taxation would have the strong recommendation in its favour of being a sure means of doing away with that foolish and expensive pride which makes most men wish to appear to be greater and richer than they really are. The inquisitional nature of this tax can b8 no objection whatever against it, inasmuch as one man cannot justly have greater causo of complaint than another. We have made these remarks because we wish to bring the subject fully and fairly before the public, we are now on the eve of receiving a new Governor, who will doubtless see the necessity of making many changes in the Government of this Colony, and we are perfectly convinced that no other change would be more conducive to the general wellfare than the doing away with the Customs and all other indirect means of raising a revenue. A country without trade and commerce must be thoroughly dependent upon its own internal resources. A new Colony cannot be expected to make these immediately available, even if they do exist. It is therefore to a very great extent dependent upon foreign supplies, and being so, there cannot certainly be greater madness on the part of such a Colony than to throw impediments in the way of those from whom its supplies are received. If we cannot grow enough of bread for cur own consumption, is it wise that we should tax foreign corn ? If we cannot manufacture our own clothing, should we put a tax upon the manufactures of other countries ? And if we must have tobacco and spirits, should we hy taxes make them as expensive as possible to ourselves? — These are the questions which are involved in the subject of direct. or indirect taxation. If direct taxation bo the most conducive to tho general good, then would we advise the people to make every eiibrt to remove the other. "We have reason to believe that addresses on various subjects will be presented to the Governor on his arrival, and we would strongly urge upon the people to make their sentiments known to him on this subject ; if they should agreo with us in deeming the Customs and every other mode of indirect taxation a drag upon the advancing .prosperity of the Colony, they ought then to lose no time in making their ideas on this subject known to the Governor. He is a liberal minded man, and must be well aware of the great advantage of free ports and free trade ; and even if he may not have it in his own power to make the required changes, he may materially assist in recommending to tho Home Government a compliance with the reasonable demands of the people in this respect.