LOCAL AND GENERAL POLITICS.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 997, 5 September 1877, Page 3

LOCAL AND GENERAL POLITICS.

To the Editor of the Globe.

Sir, --I beg to contradict the statement appearing in your paper that I was offering myself as a candidate for the City Council. I refused the ratepayers who waited upon me both last year and this year. I still think, as I have so often said, that the City Council should be abolished ; that a Board of Works should be elected to take up the whole of the suburbs ; to take over the gas, &c. ; to divide the nine square miles occupied at present by the city into wards, with separate ledgers, &c. I am glad to see that the Dunedin folk have adopted my plan, and that an agitation is l egun there to put the whole of the six sets of Council into one useful body, saving three-fourths of the expense thereby. The Melbourne people have also taken up my ideas published in the Dunedin papers, and have called for plans and estimates of a ship canal to bring the vessels from the Bay into Melbourne, so the business plans which the papers here refused to publish at all, are both published and adopted elsewhere, while the Christchurch folk remain happy in their ignorance, for ignorance is always happy where wisdom is folly. The days of my candidature here are ended for ever ; the deficit that I foretold in November, 1875, is here. I shook my fist in the faces of 2000 roaring throats, and said ‘‘You will smart for this day’s work ” The prophesy is this day fulfilled in your ears, and heavy deficits, covered by deficiency bills, decreasing revenue, temporary overdrafts from bankers, are upon you, and the Treasurer says, “ Rest and lie thankful.” I sent a letter to a paper the other day containing fqcts and plans unknown to the Prime Minister, the House, or the country. It was quietly written—it was sunpressed—it has gone up to the members at Wellington to help, as help it can. Three gross blunders were committed. 1. The hon. Treasurer ami his colleagues stated that £122,060 was contributed by the wealthy iu stamps. 2. The motion of the hon. Bowen says—- “ Taxation shall be adjusted to impose burdens on property.” 3. In the lame and impotent discussion in the House, no one seemed to know, or appreciate the fact, that the goods and chattels and personal estate are twice as large as the real estate; also that the real estate is heavily burdened already, while personal estate goes free. So 1 drew out a table for the information of the public and of the House, to show how the incidence of taxation should fall for the snmmum bonnm of the greatest number. Here, then, is the estimate of Personal Estate:— Company and private mortgages £ 10,000, 000 Existing long leaseholds ... 5,000,000 Insurance, mining, and trading companies ... ... ... 20,000,000 Six banks’ capital and deposits 15,000,000 Foreign firms, ruuholders, stockholders ... ... ... 20,000,000 £70,000,000 While the Real Estate was stated as 12,000,000 acres at £2 25,000,000 Boroughs, cities, &c. ... ... 20,000.000 A large part of the personal estate gives 15 and 20 per cent, income to persons not living in Zealandia, millions of profit have been drawn from us paying no taxes at all, while the burden lies on the laborers, viz : farmers, traders, clerks, mechanics. I sent this to the representatives at Wellington,

with the note added that an income tax could be made and collected iu thirty days. Now as New Zealand is insolvent half a million, although not yet bankrupt, and as the Bank of New Zealand has seized one private railway (see telegrams), and I do not wish to see such a calamity as open bankruptcy and seizure of our railways, 1 think we should shy personalities to the devil, and help each other like men. Suppose a simple proclamation all persons and companies having incomes above £250 arc hereby commanded to declare the value by affidavit at the various savings’ bank offices, and pay Is 6‘d in the £1 on the same by such a date — foreign residents allowed six months —what hinders that ? Then the charities should be a first charge on this income tax. I make bold to say it is the only medicine that will cure the disease. The House is talking of borrowing five millions more. Surely we may still address the spirit of the departed Yogel:— Ah ! tell me the charm ! How thou boldest Their, hearts, who fall at thy feet to fawn As a butterfly—dost thou flutter by. Ah, whence? and oh, whither? art come and gone ? His spirit holds the hearts of the Ministry, and the majority. An income tax will break the spell, perhaps, and the rich men will quote Shakespeare to the ghost of Vogel:— Avaunt! and quit my sight Thy loans are marrowless, The stamps paid by merchants, companies, banks, &c , are charged really on“customers, being all taken out of gross profits, while the actual net profit escapes taxation. It is curious that no one in the House took up the Major’s blunder. An income tax ought to be declared to morrow and collected through the banks without expense. Delay is dangerous. An assessed land tax is utterly wrong, because it punishes those who improve property, while a simple acreage tax punishes absentees and speculators only. Yours, &c., J. W. TREADWELL.