THE NEW ASSEMBLY GOING FROM CHARYBDIS TO SCYLLA.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4096, 6 September 1884, Page 4

THE NEW ASSEMBLY GOING FROM CHARYBDIS TO SCYLLA.

[To the Editor of this Daily Telegraph. ] irfiE, —In order to make myself understood I "will have to give hero a succinct analysis of •what I wrote in your columns on July 11th last, under the title "A Glance at the Past unci the Present " 1. The extravagance of spending so much money on public buildings. 2. The exaggerated number of representatives and the uselcssness of the Legislative Council. o. The stupidity of having departed from the Provincial system, and the inability of Centralisation to do good work. •1. The jealousy existing between the two Islands, which will always be the sharp rock in the way of the administration of this colony. '). The mistake of not having made the immigrants repay their passago money in five years or thereabouts. G. The advisability not only of providing the immigrants who have a small capital and bear a good character with land, but alsa with implements to work the laud, to 1)0 paid for on the principle of the buildingsocieties. 7. Tho regret that the laud has not been distributed so that it might have belonged to the many and not to the few. 8. Tho advisability of selling the railways. 9. To establish an equitable system of taxation. It is useless for me, Sir, to repeat here ■what everybody knows and sees everyday, i.e., mi assembly of which one-third of tho members are representing themselves, and the other two-thirds (with a few exceptions) representing their locality, or their fads, and never tho colony at large. You sec ' there clearly, Sir, the jealousy existing between South and North showing its ugly face ! No one willing to yield or to advance a step in tho way of concord ; in a word, you see there a pack of i'oxc.s ' Such is the deplorable situation into which this colony is plunged, and 1 assure you that a dissolution would only make things worse. We must make demonstrations of one sort or another and send to our representatives an " imperative mandate " to tell them: Doivu with the collision and form a voiilitioii, or retire. I conic now at once to No. 8, "The advisability of selling the railways." I think it would be wise to sell the railways at their cost price to a company (for 99 years), under the condition that such a company would undertake to continue the lines all through the colony, and j>ay nn animal subvention to the Government for tho monopoly,.and at the end of 99 years the Government would have the right to buy the railways from tho said company. This system -would briny v capital of £12,0-37,072 2s lid, and an annual revenue. Now for No. 0, "To establish an equitable system of taxation," and this, Sir, is my hobby, but it differs from the hobbies of the members of the Assembly. Nearly every member lias his own tax, land, property, incomes, &<:., &c. What I want is tax a man for what he is worth in land, property (house furniture excepted), shares of all sorts, money bearing interest, fees or ■wages (not under £150 a year). Importation would bo classed as the property of the merchant, and pay, once for all, its share of taxation ad valorem at the same pro ruta as any thing else, and consequently the Customs Department would become unnecessary. Of course I will bo asked: how aro you going to collect tho taxes 'i Nothing .so easy. .Each person earning £150 a year, or being worth that sum by any other means, would have to fill up a schedule as follows: land, so much ; property, so much ; shares (stating their nature), so much; money bringing interest, γ-o much ; fees or wages, yearly, si much ; imported goods, so much ; total, so much. .But Avhat about unscrupulous people ? True, eroiy one ran f-'iuugglu if he choose, ihii point is not to be naught. ! Any person making- v false declaration would receive no less than six months imprisonment, besides a line, and be deprived of his ii:il rights for a period varying from live to tin years. This punislinieiil would bu very

efficacious. As I said in my last paper, supposing the colony to bo worth £200,000,000, importation included, and that £5,00,000 be wanted to cover the expenses of the year, the tax would be 3d, a pound. People would bo inclined to think if every thing were taxed it would be rather hard ! Not at all. Tax as you like, the £2,500,000 expenses of the year must bo found ! I fail to see why these taxes could not bo imposed proportionally on the value of things. As, for instance, 20s worth of tobacco would be taxed 3d as well as 20s worth of land, and so on with clothing, spirit or beer, property, &c. And I beg to mention here that it is scarcely the person who ie taxed directly who pays taxes. As an illustration I will take my own case: My landlord charges mo £-10 a year for the house I live in ; in this sum is included the taxes which he pays to the Corporation ; the fact is that he offered to take only £33 if I chose to pay the taxes myself. And it is the same in regard to the general taxes; the producer always discharges his taxes on the consumer, who, in fact, indirectly pays the taxes. If any Government cowld find its way to put into practice this scheme of taxation I would call it a " Coalition Government." I wanted. Sir, to speak about the borrowing sjstem, but this would require many columns, which you cannot really spare in your overcrowded paper. I will express my humble opinion on this subject in a single sentence : I found that the different loans have been raised at too high a rate of interest, and also that they are redeemable in too short a time ; the burden rests too much on the present generation. And where are now these £31,385,411 gone ? I fear they have gone back where they came from ! It would have been well for tho Government to have found a means to keep those millions in. Apologising for having trespassed so much on your columns, and thanking you for your kindness, permit me to subscribe myself Jericho. P.S.—This letter was penned before news of the formation of the present Ministry arrived, but I have loft it in its original state.— J.