COLONIAL TAXATION.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IX, Issue 484, 13 June 1867, Page 3

COLONIAL TAXATION.

[Xcl.-on Examiner.] I\o. X!. Since writing our last article on the subject of the post;. I service, we have been inhumed that the sum of £50,000 lor the eiectric telegraph is not wholly swallowed up i:.; the working expense* of the Use. It ap-; pears that a pai l of the money is devoted | to tin’ extension ct the telegraph beyondj its present limit*. So far tins is well. V\ c| were also gratified to hear that the receipts of the telegraph were nearly equal to the expenditure unon the working oi the line. All this is so far an answer to some strictures, which wo hare made upon this department of Government and we are exceedingly g'ad that so much of an answer is pos-ibie. If it were possible to show that all our strictures were capable of sutfieient answer or explanation wo can only say we should bo gad to Had it so. In this particular case, however, wc must not take the explanation for more than it is worth. The £50,0 JO for the telegraph is not as we had feared it was, a vast, sum spent upon Unproductive works. The recei: t.- are said nearly to pay (he working expenses of the line, and although we should like to see them do so cut ire! v, we are ready to admit that there are advantages in speedy communications for the good government of tnc colony whicn may be allowed to stand against at all events some small deficiency of returns. If it be true, then, that there is no great, detlcioncv in revenue irom the telegraph, we may allow tins to stand ns

an example, only too rare, of a depaitmeul of our trove'nmeut conducted upon the principles on which all the departments ought to be conducted- It i= still s question and a very .*erioui one, how far inis is the time to spend large, sums in telegraphic extension, wueu the must that can be sui.l for the lines nlieady made is, that their receipts nearly pay tb-ir working expenses "Works that are i i themselves excellent map evidence very great icily or recklessness in those who undertake them, when they cannot afford t-.e cost, and we are inc.iaed to think that going into now telegraph expenses w hen the colony was groaning under a taxation too heavy to bear, was only one evidence the more of the disregard of economy with which we have taxed our rui?r*-

Putting aside the question of the 'ieltr graph Department, however, we come to one class of our Postal expenditure which is in some respects quite the most important class—we mean that winch is apportioned amongst the various provinces On the whole, this amounts to a sum of upwards of £71,000, and it is expended in the maintenance of the Post-ofiices, and the carriage of mails from one part of the proan observer is the vast disproportion which exists between the sums expended in different parts of tne colony ; for instance, the expenditure in Taranaki is £929, that in Wellington is £I,BO \ and that in Otago £27,400. Taranaki may perhaps be con-sidor-vd r-r exceptional cs-e, ns there is no inlanu population, so we may substitute

the Province of Nelson, in which £2,78-4 is soent this year upon mails and otSces. The fact thus appears that the Postal Service in Nelson costs little more than half that in Wellington, and almost exactly a tenth part of that in Otago. Following up the principle on which we have gone hitherto in considering this question, we mu,! set in what proportion the va ions provinces contribute to the postal revenue, because ii it appears that there |is no fixed propor tion between the revenue derived and the money expended in the various provinces, vre are forced to the conclusion that here again one part of the public is found paying for the convenience of the ocher part a principle which we maintain to be false. In 1565, the revenue from the posi-oiMces in Auckland amounted to £11,528; and for ISOS, the expenditure provid-d for wa? £8,028. Here the expenditure was little more than two-thirds of the revenue, leaving one-third to pay the steam-service? and the like expenses. In Wellington, the revenue amounted to £5,178, leaving about one fifteenth of the revenue for expenditure on steam services, &n. In Nelson, Uit revenue was £2,781, leaving nearly as large a deficit as in Anck'and there was an overplus. in Marlborough again the revenu was £SS3, and the expenditure £2,519, o nearly three times the revenue. In Canterbury, the revenue was £10,150, and the expenditure £'20,623, or more than double liie revenue. Jn Otago, the revenue wa? £l3,*>oo, and the expenditure £27,101, or considerably more than twice the revenue. Auckland, Taranaki, and Wellington, arc the only three provinces the revenue ol which, for 1305, exceeded the ioe&i expen lit are for 1806 ; and it would seem thai' the further south we go the worse the ois proportion is. We have spoken of rim Native Department, and the source of continual dissaiisfaction which it was to the south ; it is hut fair to remark that if tic Native Department has cost £30,000, spent nr the northern i-laud. the local postal ex peuditure in tire southern island has cos beyond the r« venue £2 V ,51 f; while in tin northern island the expenditure was iesthan the revenue by more than £3,0 '0 thus making up rather more than tiu£3o,ooo, of which our Otago friend* mak... so much.

This, however, is not the question at present. A comparison of the revenue and expenditure on the local postal services shows clearly that they are far more expensively conducted iu some provinces than liu others. It is easy to understand that Iwith a email revenue like that of Nelson. Iliuwke’s Lay and MtuThoi ough it may be iimpossible to maintain any vtostal communication without an expenditure in excess of revenue ; but it is not so ea-v to tee wiiv Otago with a revenue ot ,tIi,UUU, should cost. £b7,UJO, or why Canterbury with a revenue of JLTojOOO, should cost £ko,ohi). We shall be told that there are so many distant settlements to be provided for that the cost is inevitable, but anyone who knows how the population is scattered io the province of Auckland, will see that this iis not the s.'lo reason why Otago costs i.£27,U(. , 0, and Auckland £S,‘ 00, lor its ser-

vices. At ail events it is quite clear tied the expenditure is too groat in some paws of tim colony. As in many other tilings to whicn we have referred, we are quite aware that we tread here upon critical ground. There is no doubt, that postal services, bringing letters and papers, are tilings greatly appreciated by the runholders and diggers in distant parts of the country, and tnat, could the colony afford it, much might be said in favor of giving them this indulg nee. We say that the colony cannot now aii’ord it, and that those scattered settlers in the South must make up their minds to be more like the scat tered settlers in the North, and got a uiaii once a fortnight or once a month if need i De, until the postal revenue will pay postal expenditure, iiitiierto, it may be said, we have confined ourselves to a general fault finding with the department, and we are not anxious to deny this us it is more especially our share of the work of reform. In a future article, however, ws mean to give some of our own ideas upon the important question of how the postal expenditure of this colony may best be brought within the means of the settlers.