The Evening Star MONDAY, JUNE 1, 1874

Evening Star, Issue 3516, 1 June 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star MONDAY, JUNE 1, 1874

Mr M ‘Lean’s motion that auriferous land should be sold was the means of allowing our method of dealing with our waste lands to be criticised. In selling mineral lands we are really disposing of that part of the resources of the country that can never be replaced—and, in fact, in leasing them we are doing the, same. The only question is, what is the most profitable way by which the State can part with this portion of its capital—its mineral wealth. Mr M'Lean thinks that if the land, to use a hackneyed lawyer’s phrase, usque ad ccdum, atque ad wJeros was given over to private persons—made their own property—capital would be invested that is not now embarked, because of the transitory nature of the miner’s property in ‘his claim. Possibly he is partially correct, and possibly he did goodjby showing that there are interests in the Province requiring attention as well as gold-mining. The produce of our farmers and of our pastoral tenants is great and increasing. We must begin to look to foreign countries for a market for our agricultural produce. It is not, however, these things that the motion has the means of bringing out to which we wish to refer. The amendment that was proposed, and was lost only by three votes, went to the other extreme. It asserted that the State should not sell the land, but lease it for a term of years. Here was something the mover of the motion could not have expected. He wished all the land sold, auriferous and non-auriferous—-the amendment desired the very opposite method. But the amendment was even more radical than that. It proposed new systems of taxation and a total change in New Zealand finance. The imposition of .two new taxes was demanded—Pirst, a land tax, and then an income tax. We were surprised that so many voted for these new taxes. It shows a great change in popular feeling. In the Colonies, unfortunately, taxation has never yet been brought home to the taxpayer. So long as Customs duties and the sales are the methods of raising revenue, people feel little of the pressure of taxation. The taxes are taken from them indirectly, and they know it not. To make a taxpayer pay his three or four pounds a year to a tax collector would lead to grumbling and to a demand for economy. We do not say that indirect taxation is wrong. In politics that which is expedient is often the only possible and practical, as well as the better thing to do. But still indirect taxation covers a multitude of governmental shortcomings; it hides them from the public gaze. The amendment wished to alter all this. It desired to bring the taxpayer face to face with loans, with interest, with sinking funds, with Government expenditure. But these are unpalatable things, and the farmers will pay taxes on everything they eat, drink, wear, use—but directly to the tax collector never. This dread of the tax collector, and of the result of meeting him, prevented the amendment being carried, but there .was something else that militated against its adoption. Some people who are loud in their denunciation of the squatter and the land speculator, do not refrain from adding acre to acre whenever they have the means. To these a land tax has an ominous sound. They do not object to the State’s making railways through their farms or holdings, but to pay for constructing these railways, or introducing laborers for their fields or sheep runs ; the idea is radical and shocking—hence the amendment was voted against. Still, if trade is to flourish in these Colonies it must be tiee, and freedom of trade means reduction in the Customs Tariff, and a land, or an income tax, or both. The elasticity of the Customs will come to an end, and when our land fund has become “beautifully small,” aland tax is inevitable. If the amendment served no better purpose than pointing out this, it would have done good. The time is fast approaching when we must either have our land sacrificed to capi-

talists and monopolists, or direct taxation must be resorted to. Which course do the people desire to be pursued 1 There is no third way. The difficulty meets us now, and it is for the various constituencies to determine what path the Colony must enter on. One is a very easy and short method; sell our land in big or little blocks to large or small monopolists, and we shall enjoy some years of peace and prosperity, but—'" aye, there's the rub”—that “ but.” There will be an end to this road, and at its end a huge gulf of insolvency or adversity. The other way is difficult, is unpleasing, but in the end it will be not only the more profitable, but really will pave the way for permanent prosperity. Again, we repeat, which way will the people go 1 The subject is now before them. The issues are truly momentous, and on their decision the future of this Province, in a measure, depends. The method is one that requires grave consideration, and we trust that, now it has been mooted, it will be again and Again debated, so that a fitting decision may be given. To the debate on the “increment” we shall at a future time refer. In one way we are glad that it has been brought up in the Council. On many previous occasions we have advocated a leasing system, and it would have been strange that when in England and in the Australasian Colonies this method of dealing with the State lands was being discussed, we who have had endless land law debates should have ignored this new system. The objections to it were fairly and ably stated by Mr M‘Lean in his reply, and to his remarks we must devote a future article.