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Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 108, 10 March 1892, Page 2

If we may iudge from a speech made recently by Mr W. Hutchison, M.H.R. for Dunedin city, and a strong supporter of the Government, who was elected as " a labor candidate, " a further attempt will be made next session to add to the existing taxation on land. Mr Hutchison is reported to have said " Land settlement was not enough to make a country prosperous. The towns also had a right to consideration, and the State should foster appropriate industries of all kinds, as providing employment for urban labor. We needed a further measure of protection for several of our industries, and Parliament would fail in its duty if it did not move in the direction he had indicated." This evidently means an increase in the customs tariff, and therefore an addition to the taxation of settlers on the land, in order that the unemployed in the towns may have work found for them. The old battle of Town v. Country will have to be fought over again, and our only hope is that the latter will be strong enough in the House to defeat any such barefaced attempts at spoliation. It is to be regretted that alleged liberals like Mr Hutchison cannot be educated up to 1 the knowledge that the interests of the towns are unseperable from those of the country settlements, and that it is 1 impossible to benefit one at the exI pense of the other without ultimately injuring both. The following are the traffic returns for the Napier- Taranaki section for the four weeks ending January 30, 1892, and for the corresponding neriod in 1891.

The principal increase is in passengers, wool, and firewood ; in the latter 3408 tons were hauled, as against 159 tons for tho period in 1891.

1892 1891 Passengers 7340 18 3 5552 110 Parcels ... 778 1 2 575 4 8 Gooda ... 7817 1 8 7157 16 5 Mis'laneous 411 12 4 395 15 1 £16,347 13 5 £13,680 18 0