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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3097, 1 June 1881, Page 2

Tkb Christchurch Press of the 27th May contains a very full report of the speech delivered by the Premier at Leeston, from which we make the following extract : —On the subject of the property tax I would not now have said anything, had it not been for pome remarks which have fallen from Mr Ormond and Sir George Grey, and which are calculated to leave a wrong impression, Mr Ormond, in a speech at Waipawa, is reported to have stated that the tax had been imposed on the people of the colony without their having had an opportunity of being consulted. I entirely dissent from that statement. At tho last general election there was hardly any question more freely discussed than the relative merits of the property tix and land tax, I entirely deny that the property tax was imposed without the people having Lad a chance of sayin_c whether or not they approved of it. Sir George Grey stated at the Thames that he had been compelled by the property tax to dismiss some men—he did not say how many— and that is made to appear as a good reason why the property tax must be considered a bad tax. But if Sir George Grey's property is .so large that a penny in the pound upon it is equal to the wages of say two or three men, I can see no reason why he should not pay his share of the general taxation. T pay twice as much under the property tax aa I did under the land tax ; but I do so cheerfully, because I know that now my wealthy neighbours are also bearing their fair share of their burden of taxation, which they' did not do under the land tax. The most serious statement in this Thames speech is that in which Sir G. Grey contends that the English holders of New Zealand bonds should be charged with the property tax. He did not say how much, but on a previous occasion he proposed to raise £370,000 a year in this way. He states that when he mentioned this in the House I looked at him with horror. That is pefectly true. Let us see what are our obligations to the English bondholders. The case stands thus: The colony of New Zealand, on condition of a certain amount of money being lent to it by London capitalists, agreed to pay to those lenders every half year a certain sum by way of interest. That was the bargain that was entered into, and a bargain is a bargain all the world over. Now, it is proposed, because our necessities are large, that we should say to these creditors, who are receiving their interest in London, " Gentlemen, you must receive so much less than we agreed to give you." That appears to me absolutely dishonest—a breach of a bargain ; it appears to be repudiation. We have a right to tax people upon their incomes in New Zealand, but if we bargain with people in London to pay them a specific rate as interest every year, that bargain we are bound, as honest men, to keep.