COLONIAL TAXATION.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IX, Issue 473, 25 April 1867, Page 3

COLONIAL TAXATION.

no. vnr. We lately saw the administrative talents of our present Postmaster General very highly extolled in the columns of ouo of our Now Zealand con tempo rories. On di reding our attention more especially to the postal branch of our Government expenditure. >»s were at once struck by the happy coincidence of the necessity and the supply in this case. The PostmasterGeneral bus certainly mud) room to distinguish himself. The postal department of tliis colony costs as nearly as may be £200,000 a year. That is to say, we pay one-sixth of our whole annual revenue for the blessings of a Post-office and frequent postal communication. Of course this subject, like all other financial subjects—we might almost say, all sorts of subjects —divides itself naturally into the two branches of what we pay, and what we receive for our expenditure. And first we must look at what the postal services of New Zealand cost (he colony—or, as we should rather put it, by way of coining to close quarters with our subject, what they cost the settlers of this country.

We Lave said the total cost amounts to very nearly £203,000 this year. There ara about 200.000 Europeans in this co iouy, so we pay just about one pound ahead for our postal arrangements. Each family, let us say of live persons, pays its contribution of £5 a year towards keeping up the Post Olliee. It is customary to call England a very heavily taxed country, but the .British taxpayer pays hardly twice as much for his vast machinery of Government altogether as the New Zealand settler does for his Post Olilce. It is nardly possible to avoid a suspicion that there is something not quite sound in the system that produces a result of this sort. We are not at present going to enter upon a full discussion of what we get for this money, but let us suppose we got the very best postal services for it. Let us imagine —it is a considerable strain upon the fancy, we admit—that vve got our mails with punctuality, and had every possible convenience given us for their despatch at the latest possible dates. Let us suppose our mails were never kept lying in one port waiting for some particular chance to bring them on, while others bring nows that they are coming by and by ; ami even then it must bo confessed the amount paid seems a very largo one indeed—and not a little beyond the means at our command. It is worth while to take this total to pieces mid sec whether we cannot arrive at ,-omc idea of how it is made up, and what is responsible for its enormous amount. First, then, there is mi item of £135,200 for the carriage of mails by sea. The sum is a largo one, but we suspect it is not quite so large as it ought to be. By this we do not mean that wo wish to see it more, but that we strongly suspect it isj more in reality. Our reason is tills—the half subsiily for the Panama mail service is £55,000 a year, and, if we are not much mistaken, the coast services, together with the Auckland service with Sydney, come to more than £15,000. However this may bo, the sum of more than £65,000 is paid far conveyance of mails by sea: nearly all of which goes in payment of the Panama mail service, by which wc get a few T days’ later intelligence from America than comes to us by the Suez route, and send our letters away somewhat later than we can via Melbourne, and even—if we are willing to pay 3d. for the luxury—a newspaper or two. Wo are not now discussing the merits of the Panama service, however, but only pointing out roughly what it is that this £2OO OUO a year is expended upon. Then wo have nearly £50,000 for the Telegraph Depart ments, which is rather a startling sum, surely, when wo consider how verylittle use is really made of the lines by the public. The Central Depart* ment, which we suppose means the Secretary of the Post Olilce and his clerks, demands the sum of £3,200 a year in salaries ; this seems large when it is remembered that even in Wellington there is a Provincial Department, with a large staff of clerks to do t he work. There is £6,570 for the Marino Engineer’s Department, which does not at lirst sight strike us as Laving very much connection with the Postal Department, and of the duties of which we confess to having the vaguest notions. This leaves a sum of about £72,000 a year to be spent on carrying the mails through the provinces, and paying the Postmasters and the clerks of the do-1 partment. Out of this sum Auckland costs about £8,000; iaranaki, less than £1,000; Hawke’s Bay, £1,800; Marlborough, £2,300; Canterbury, nearly £21,0u0; Otago, £27,500; and Southland, £3,000. We have mentioned these sums now because we think it very important that some notice should be taken of the vast disproportion winch exists between the money expended in different parts of the colony, with a view to the direction which reform must take. We have not now space to enter upon that subject, which, besides, ought to follow upon a fuller examination of what is obtained for the money. The figures, however may be studied with advantage, a» leading to considerations of many kinds bearing upon our expenditure. In the meantime wo would call attention to the very important part of the question, What is the actual advantage of postal communication ? The ordinary replies to such a question include some at least notj suitable to New Zealand. It is to speak

of the diffusion of knowledge by means of newspapers as a leading feature of its usefulness ; but that does not apply in our case to any important extent, because we are forced to pay postal rates so high that newspapers have been obliged to find a postal system of their own for the distribution of their information. If, then, it is not the diffusion of knowledge that is paid for it may ba said that it is for the purpose of other communications passing between tire various parts of the country by letter. The question then arises, Who are the people tor tlie most part who use it in this way P While the mails carried newspapers, it might be said that all classes used tho Post Office t«> - great extant, but this is certainly not true of letters. It is the mercantile class that makes use of the postal service now. Take, as an instance, the Panama mail. The number of newspapers sent by this is small, owing to the cost, and it will soon become a mere mail for letters. The persons who are interested in getting their letters a few days sooner, and sending them away a few days later are certainly not the farmers, nor the labourers; neither do we fancy they are tho part of population which is not engaged in any business. It is the merchants ami the storekeepers that reap the benefit—if benefit worthy of tho name tiiere really is, except to a very few individuals out of the community. The shopkeepers do not, we believe, participate in this benefit to any considerable extent, because what the merchant gains by this speedy communication he gains for himself alone. The public, as experience has shown, gain nothing in the way of late news from Europe. This branch of our postal expenditure appears, then, to amount to little more than a class benefit, which ought hardly to be paid for out of tho general taxation of the public. So far, then, we see that the settlers pav about one pound each in the year for tho Post Ofllce, a sum which represents a sixth part of their taxation. For this they do not get their newspapers delivered as they used to do, without charge, and mod ol them know pretty well how few letters come to them through the department in the course of tho year, while not ouo in a hundred makes use of tho electric telegraph. Tlie.se may be said to be some o! the tilings which we do not get for our money ; in another article we shall endeavour to show what we do receive iu exchange for our £2OO, OjO a year.