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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3070, 29 April 1881, Page 2

If Mr Sutton's speech at Wairoa last night has been properly reported, he appears to have spoken very inconsistently on the subject of the property tax. He is reported to have said that " the chief defect of the property tax was the exemption of £500. What he would propose would be that every man should pay the tax with no exemption, but the tax-gatherers should be ordered not to collect any sum under £1. The amount of the tax for the Hawke's Bay district now was about £15,000, while leaving out the £500 exemption would give another £3000." Now the slightest consideration of the subject will convince anybody that the above quotation from Mr Sutton's speech is so much nonsense. > He first of s»ll says that every man should pay the tax with no exemption, but the tax-gatherers should be ordered not to collect any sum under £1. The property tax is one penny in the pound, therefore if the exemption were done away with a property of tho value of £240 would pay exactly a tax of £1, but if the tax collector were not allowed to collect this sum then it follows there would be a £240 exemption. Perhaps Mr Sutton will explain what he really does means ? If it be necessary to increase the revenue no cheaper means could be devised than the extension of the property tax to all possessing property above the value of £30. The machinery for such extension is already at hand, and as the tax-gatherers now collect any sum down to the amount of 2s 6d, a £30 exemption would not break the rule. It has been estimated that the doing away with the exemption would increase the revenue by about £60,000. We are of opinion that the revenue does not require to be increased by that amount by any euch means; the people are heavily enough taxed as it is, but should difficulties arise in the matter of making both ends meet, let there be more economy in the administration of public affairs. We are certain of this, that the more revenue placed in the hands of the

Government the greater the extrava--1 gance, and the colony derives no benefit from it whatever.