COLONIAL TAXATION.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IX, Issue 453, 11 February 1867, Page 3

COLONIAL TAXATION.

Pvelson Examiner, j It is only thirteen years since this colony was entrusted with the management of its own affairs, and for at least nine years of that time, the matters over which our local statesman had control may be said to have been entirely financial. Native affairs, with their responsibilities and blunders, are things of yesterday, so far as we are concerned; and it seems hardly doubtful that the period of their engrossing importance will very soon have passed away, leaving us once more to our financial problems. The present, therefore, seems a good time »or Cojiing attention to our failures in the past, and for throwing out any hints which may prove useful to our public men in the future when they awake to the truth that what the colony expects of them is not the piaying at statesmanship—an expression which too aptly characterises much of their past conduct—bot the establishment of an efficient and economical government. After what we said on Tuesday last, we need scarcely spend more time in proving iuai this work has still to be done. For thirteen jssrs, our colonial st-tssmsii been in for tlllS TrorV, wa Oryprr |o say, they seem no nearer understanding it now than they were at first. In a mat-

ter of this kind, however, it is useless to deal in generalities, ss these are what ail agree upon; and we had rather provoke opposition and discussion so that, even should our own views prove to be mistaken, the public may be roused to find out for itself the evil and its remedy. On Tuesday last, we pointed out that a sum of about £1,200,000 would be raised by taxes from the people of this colony in the present year. xo raise this enormous sum ot money, we showed that each head of a family containing two children would require no less than 8s 6d a week into the Colonial Treasury, and that the matter was so arranged that he could hardly avoid it da as he would. It now j ivj.iiiu.u3 seen what becomes of this *n**Tr> ”*?“ “ —a sum so large that, it -England paid taxes in the same proportion to her population, the National Debt might be paid off within six years. If we look at the Appropriation Act of the present year we find it dealing with our expenditure under a few apparently well-de-fined heads, such as “Public Departments,” “ Civil List,” “Law and Justice,” “ Postal Departments," and the like. And in dealing with the whole question of our finance we shall find it convenient to follow these divisions. In the first place, however, there is one thing which runs through all these departments, and which may well be cousiderd apart from them. We mean the Civil Service of the colony, or, in other words the salaried officials of New Zealand. We take this first, because upon it we believe, depends in a great measure all reform in the finance of the colony. It is an unpleasant subject also, as any reform must inevitably affect what have become, in the esteem of those most affected by it, vested interests. The thing, however, must be done by some one, and any attempt to examine the finance of New Zealand without going to the root of the whole question of our Civil Service would be a mockery. Twelve years ago, the Civil Service of New Zealand cost, as nearly as possible, fifteen thousand a year; this year it costs not less than two hundred thousand pounds. Twelve years ago the ordinary revenue of the colony was about £IIO.OOO, now it amounts (o about £1,200,000. ‘ Thus it will be seen that while our revenue has been raised, to the very great detriment of the colony and by every possible application of pressure to nearly eleven times what it was twelve years ago, the number and expense of our salaried officers has much more than kept pace with it. The coat of our Civil Service—or, in other words, of our publicoffice clerks, high and low, great and small —is now thirteen times as great as it w’as twelve years ago. It has been made a boast that the revenue of Now Zealand has increased in a greater ratio than of any known country, in the same time. People, and especially polieians, have been dazzled by the fact that, year by year, our taxes have produced 1 enormous sums of money in excess of what 1 was expected by the Treasurers of the day. They have lost sight of the fact that there is not the smallest advantage in the mere raising of money, unless it is expended in a reproductive manner; and to (his may, in part at least, be traced the extraoi-diuary increase of unproductive expenditure. We are now face to face with the fact that, one-sixth part of tins crushing taxation under which the colony is groaning, and under which, if not removed, it must sooner or later sink, goes to pay the salaries of officers of the Civil Service. In addition to this, there is nearly £IOO,OOO fur the military servants of the colony, but this may be regarded as temporary, and at all events there is not much risk of this expenditure being increased. With the : Civil Service, it is vastly' different. In 1859, the colony paid in salaries £31,000 ; j in 1562, it paid £60,000; in 1864, I £109,000 ; and in 1866, we find ourselves 1 paying close upon £200,000, to something more than a regiment of clerks. Of the ten shillings or so a week, which we have shown every family man pays in taxes, it is a rather startling reflection that he pays about one shilling and eightpence towards 1 the salaries of Government officers of the Civil Service. By a return published last year for the information of the Assembly, there appears to have been no less than fifteen hundred and twelve salaried officers of the Government of New Zealand, besides the Colonial troops drawing salaries that averaged fully £l3O a year. Thus, if there were 200,000 Europeans in the colony, there was one Government officer of the Civil service for every 132 souls. Nor docs even this give an adequate idea of the extraordinary character of this service. It is probable that not more than one in four ' cf these 200,000 settler’s has come to man’s estate, and is really helping to pay these taxes; and, in that case, we find that we have one salaried Government officer for every thirty-three men. If England with all her red-tape and circumlocution, which have afforded food for so much sarcasm to all the world, indulged in civil servants in 1 the same proportion, she would employ nearly a quarter of a million of men, at a ' cost of nearly 29 millions of money a year. Our endeavor in all this has been to give the public some general idea of the magnitude of this incubus which weighs upon the colony. It may be answered that we give an unfair impression, because the expense of these things must always be j great comparatively in the early stages of a country’s developement. It may be said that to compare our position with that of England is grossly unfair, because, as years go on, the proportion of our population auu revenue to our official salaries will alter wonderfully. Those who would argue in this way m ust be brought back to the logic of facts. lu ISG4, there were far more than 20.000 Europeans in New Zealand, but the official salaries amounted to far less than a tenth of the sum they now amount to. Year by year our number 8

have increased beyond all reasonable expectation, and it is not too njimh *r> ppy, that year by year also our army of paid of- j ficialz has increased beyond all possible endurance.

We now ask ourselves where it is to stop? And the only answer we can get is “At the point where the people show that they are determined to have- » The question of this reform is one, we are aware; and for this very reason our leading politicians have preferred leaving the colony to suffer in this rnanpetwhile they “passed by on the othc-f side.’’ destruction is not reform, aa ~wq are well aware, but, before any reform is likely to take place, the thorough evil of the existing state cf things must be felt. We do not for an instant suppose that the tions which we may make hereafter will go far to clear up this matter, but we shall be fully satisfied if we find that what we have said calls public attention to the evil, and forces public men to apply themselves to the work of finding its remedy.