AN INCOME TAX.

Evening Star, Issue 3280, 25 August 1873, Page 3

AN INCOME TAX.

The following letter appears in the Colonist :

The talk about the new tariff imposing additional taxation on the people, brought to my remembrance what the Hon. Mr Stafford said to the electors of Nelson on January 27, 1866 j—- “ As for new taxes, I have long been of opinion that there was one tax which was well adapted for the Colony, and would be just in its pressure. I mean an income tax. —(Cheers.) .... Ido not think that

those who helped to bring the Colony into its present position should escape tasting some of its fruits, and I do not seek to exonerate myself from having had a share in this. I think those people ought to give of their substance to meet the results which they helped to produce.—(Hear, hear.) I amused myself one day last session in reckoning the number of people in the House who had large possessions, and thus best represent individual wealth in tbe Colony, and I counted eleven men who in the aggregate represented in their own persons between three and four millions of money. Oat of these eleven, seven had been strongly favorable to that policy which has mainly caused oar present indebtedness, and I thought it only fair to say to those men—-Now you see what has resulted from this policy, and you musbhelp to pay the cost.—(Loud applause.) It is very likely, therefore, that I shall propose both a stamp tax and an income tax next session—(hear, hear, and applause}—and a revision of the Customs tariff also.”

This was said seven years ago, and are we any nearer an income tax now ; and has Mr Stafford put forth any efforts to bring such a “just ” tax into operation ?