LOCAL AND GENERAL.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume V, Issue 222, 3 February 1865, Page 2

LOCAL AND GENERAL.

The New Taiufe and Direct Taxation. —We have already had occasion to make known our opinions on the above subjects. The following, which we take from the New Zealand Advertiser, brings the subject more closely home to the Weld Ministry and the philanthropic economists of Exeter Hall. We have from want of space been compelled materially to abridge the article :—“ Most modern Governments prefer pocket-picking by a dexterous and indirect process to the bold, direct, * stand-and-deliver ’ principle formerly in vogue. We owe the New Customs Duties Act to this preference on the part of our ruling classes, but the necessity for any additional taxes of any kind is owing chiefly to Downing-street intermeddling in our local concerns. Great Britain was taught to believe that the war with the natives was fomented and prosecuted for the double purpose of depriving the natives of the lands they occupied as hunting grounds, and of securing to the Colony a large commissariat expenditure furnished by the Imperial Treasury. Consequently, she was opposed to the confiscation policy, the only effectual means of putting an end to the war and of defraying its cost, without having recourse to English tax-payers or to colonial taxation. The opposition which this policy has met with at home has not lessened its cost to Great Britain, but it has fearfully augmented its cost to the Colony. Of the .£3,000,000 loan borrowed by the latter, if is supposed that not 000 will be unspent at the

end of next June, and, while scarcely a single object for which it was obtained has been achieved, a colony of 100,000 inhabitants has had imposed upon it additional indirect taxes to the tune of .£200,000 per annum.

If this additional taxation had been imposed upon the wealthy classes of the community in the shape of an income and property tax, instead of an increase being made in the duties on imported articles of general our legislators would have given a practical proof of that disinterestedness they were so anxious in speeches and memoranda to convince the British Government and public they were actuated ly. They would also have shown that they could not in future be accused of wishing to plunge the colony into war, seeing that a large portion of its cost would have to be borne by themselves. If we are not greatly mistaken they will yet have to afford a practical proof of this kind. The native difficulty has hitherto monopolized the greater portion of their attention, —in the next session the financial question will do so. There will have to be found some other way of defraying expenses of Government than that of raising a revenue by means of indirect taxes. Heavy duties upon imports in a country like this will defeat the object for which they were imposed. They will discourage the consumption of the articles on which such duties are levied. Their imposition, however, will not be without its advantages. The high prices of the principal articles of general consumption will teach the electors of the colony to take a greater interest than has hitherto been their custom in public questions. They have allowed the public lands to be occupied at a nominal rent, or to be sold for an old song, and they will see whether there cannot be discovered means of reaching those squatters and land monopolists by some more direct method than the mere imposition of duties upon imports, "hey will naturally enquire whether the farmer with an income of £SOO or £SOOO per annum should not be forced to contribute a trifle more to the State than the sheepshearer, though he does not contribute more, or so much, under the present system. Many of the articles used by the former are admitted duty free, including saddlery and sheep-wash tobacco, while most of the imported articles required by the latter are heavily taxed. This is a state of matters which will not be much longer tolerated. The Customs Duties Act of the Weld Ministry, by intensifying the inequalities which existed under the former Act, will do more to remedy the evils then complained of than all the arguments, articles, letters, protests, and speeches that have ever been spoken or written on the subject.