THE LABOUR MARKET.

Globe, Volume VII, Issue 762, 29 November 1876, Page 3

THE LABOUR MARKET.

To the Editor of the Globe,

Sir,--It seems to me that the writer of the letter signed "G. Walker," takes up this matter in a totally wrong spirit. Per haps he and the public will listen to, and weigh well, the facts and plans I propose. First. The taxation by Customs is about £4 a head, and if you add stamp duties, law taxes, gold duties, city rates, road rates, new county rates, Waimakariri rates, wateing rates, special building rates, and last, but nut least, drainage rates, the taxation is nearer to £lO per head of the people. New Zealand statistics are so incomplete you can not calculate the taxes. I foresaw all this, and ?also the issue ol the deficiency bills, which in a few months will be £BOO,OOO, and I proposed a clear succinct method of removing the taxation, employing the labor, and increasing the revenue, without taxation. I issued my Reform Bill to the members of the House throughout New Zealand. To remove the taxation I proposed a general education fund for New Zealand, throwing cost of buildings and part of maintenance of schools on to the land reserved for the purpose. To employ the labor I proposed, to open those reserves at free selection od deferred payments in fifty acre blocks to working men at a rental to begin with of 2s 6d per acre. To increase the revenue without taxation would of course be effected by this same plau. But if Mr G. Walker or Mr Grant think they will do any good, by running down New Zealand to people at home, they make the greatest of all mistakes; it is cutting > your nose to spite your face. Your real difficulty is to employ the men that are here, not to frighten those who are not here; that does not benefit anybody, but on the contrary,

Combine into a Reform League, appoint a committee, decide on measures, not on men; the latter might, like a pike (Pyke), run into the hand that leans on it. Elect men pledged to a sensible reform and a redistribution of taxes.

Sir G. Grey, amid all his T errors and his total ignorance of finance, said one true thing:—"The laws of New Zealand are made all in favour of the rich class against the poor class." There was lent last year five millions on mortgage here, but, as there is no income tax, the richest mortgagees escape altogether. There was made in New Zealand last year over a million of profits by companies and others; these profits were remitted to London to be spent in fashionable frivolity, free of taxes, &c. I want to tax the rich and ease the poor. Let us combine, and save New Zealand from the clutches of those who by class legislation would ruin this splendid country. Don't send home an evil report concerning this good land. Send home for a few intelligent working men who will have the wit to combine, to agitate ; never to say die, till the laws are totally altered. The poor outnumber the rich. Register 1 Register!! Let us s ave the country. The matter has already been brought before Parliament, and discussed there, but there was no one in the House with such a thorough knowledge of finance, and such a ready wit as to hold up through Hansard and the whole House to the execration of future generations as wilfully refusing " justice to the poor." When Mr Stout brought it on in the House, the Hon C. C. Bowen opposed it. He said "Deferred payments would cause such a rush of money into the treasury that it would impoverish the poor, because the money would come out of the poor." Whereas, the simplest mind can see that this rush of money would came out of the increased produce of the soil that now lies waste, and the working men would create a living with plough and spade, while • their rent would be revenue. My advice to the working men is, "Don't cry stinking fish for sale here." Register ! combine ! agitate 1 Above all, remember measures, and men if you can. Yours, &c, J. W. TREADWELL.