The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1883.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3875, 18 December 1883, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1883.

From Dunedin and from Christohurch comes the news of hundreds of men being , out of employment, and of their families being in a state of miserable destitution. From all parts of the colony the story reaches us of commercial depression, of low prices of colonial produce, and of the severity of the burthen of taxation. With all this we have the fact in Hawke's Bay of the natives revelling in wealth; disputing in the Courts over the ownership of magnificent estates ; employing lawyers and interpreters and sur • veyors regardless of cost. Truly it may be said of this favored of favored races, as it was of the lily, "they spin not, neither do they toil," and we may well consider how they grow—in riches. The laws of this colony have vested the unearned increment in the Maoris, and they thrivo upon it, while the European colonists are ground down by taxation to pay for the loans, the expenditure of which have made the nativelands valuable. When the Native Land Bill of 1873 was before the House the lato Sir Cracroft Wilson said that two-thirds of the land in the North Island belonged to the native race. And ho asked, was it to bo supposed that- two-thirds of (he land should be exempted from all taxation and all rates ? He regarded it as preposterous that the holders* of two-thirds of the land were to have the benefit of the energy, capital, and outlay of the European race, and wore not to pay a single thing in return. He then instanced the case of Kaiapoi, where the natives had not expended a sixpence, but boinjr surrounded by Europeaus, whose labor find capital had made the place so valuable, the Maori estate was worth at auction £-15,000. Sir Cracroft Wilson said it, was the land tax, which was really the rent of the land, and the system of compelling toil, that had made India a garden. He would have had that principle applied to this colony, and not sot it altogether on one side, that a lazy race might be encouraged to do nothing .'mil to bo exempted from taxation because it suited their idle habits. The Crown and Native Lands Rating Act imposes no responsibility, no labor, no thrift, no anxiety on the Maoris. They are not called upon to pay the rates ; the Government—that is to say, the European—pays them, and the land is charged ■witU them until it passes into the hands of the European, and then he will have to pay these back rates over again, for the Maori will take very- good care to get the full value of the land. ~ In the face of destitution in some _ places, and general depression in all, and in view of increased taxation being , needed to make up the deficiency in the revenue, it may be as well to cast a glance over the vast areas of untaxed land that are held by the natives. The Maoris are likely to bo a permanent portion of the population of this Island, and it seems to us a monstrous thing that they should bo exempt from direct taxation. A state of things is scarcely conceivable that in our midst a, native who, in his youth, was only to he described as a savage, could acquire through the peculiarity of our laws an immense estate, and, dying, leave to his son a property valued at some thousands v year, and expend not one sixpence in labor or taxes to bring about such a brilliant result from the settlement of Europeans around him. Well might Mr., now Sir William, Eitzherbert say with re?pect of the Native Land Bill, 1873, that it proposed that the wealthy landholders of more than half the North Island should for all time bo exempt from taxation. Ho was to have the privilege of living with the aboriginal inhabitants, as they called themselves, — ho was not at all sure there were not aboriginal inhabitants before them, but the unfortunately non-coloured portion of the population were to have the remarkable pr ; v ;i Ofy in Hie history of the world—of living with the other portion and bearing all the taxation. They were to ' make the roads, to make the bridges, to build the schools, and to do every kind of necessary work for civilisation, and the principal portion of land was to be hung up in the hands of the so-called aboriginal inhabitants. It was a most extraordinary proposal that such a state of things should last for ever. If there was any wisdom in the remarks he had made, it must follow from them that such a provision ought not to have a permanent place on our Statute Book. There ought to be a limitation in point of time. It might be limited to a period of five years, at the end of which time they might consider whether it would be advisable to further extend it. Was there nothing in the history of their legislation that afforded them an example for such a limitation ? But to propose as a thing most natural, a law for all time, that the owners of onehalf of the territory of the North Island, so long as they continued owners, should be free of all local taxation, was monstrous. It could not be ;it would not be: and if that too tender and sensitive favouritism be maintained, depend , upon it tha present praiseworthy attitude of the inhabitants of New Zealand generally, and of the Europeans in the North Island in particular, would not continue, and there would be a reaction. Had property no duties ? If thei'o had been any one doctrine that of late years had been recognised, and ho might say hammered into the minds of possessors of property, it was, that property had not only its enjoyments and its privileges, but its responsibilities and duties. But they seemed entirely to ignore everything of that sort, and to be ready to declare that the owners of one-half of the land in the Northern Island should, .so long as they continued owners—so long as pro taiito they shut up the land from the prosecution of those great public works without which the whole of the distinctive policy of the country since 1870 must fall down like a pack of cards so far as the North Island was concerned, —that those people should be exempt from local taxation. Our policy ought to bo altogether in a different direction. Ho was not one of those who would deprive the natives of fair consideration. He admitted that exceptional legislation was necessary, but thought it ought to bo limited induration. And so do we, andfurther than that, we think the exceptional legislation which has exempted natives from direct taxation should find the limit of its duration when Parliament reassembles