COLONIAL TAXATION.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IX, Issue 485, 17 June 1867, Page 3

COLONIAL TAXATION.

pfclaon Examiner. J NO. XU.

Wb hare now reviewed the various branches of our postal expenditure, and, as our readers will have observed, with more or less of condemnation at every stage of our inquiry. Wo have found that during this year, 1567, the cost of our post-offices and telegraph will amount to about £200,000, while the revenue derived from these sources is not in the least likely to exceed £60,000, at the very highest estimate. We find, therefore, that fay some means or other the department is so conducted that it preys upon the other parts of the revenue to the extent of £140,000, this year. This, we may suppose, is paid out of the money raised out of the customs taxation. That money is paid by the mass of the people. The rich man pays little more towards it than the poor man ; while, as wo have shewn already, the poo? man is forced to pay far mors towards it than he can afford. We wish, first of ail, to have this fully understood by the people, for it is the only real basis of a reform. The post office costs £140,000 this year, which the postages on letters and papers do not pay. This money, then, comes out of their pockets. The labouring man may not write his one letter per month ; ho mayl never see a newspaper from one week’s end to another ; he may know no more about the telegraph than he can gather from looking at the wires, and wondering at the stupidity which puts up posts of the very worst wood in the forest. All this may be the case, but let him not fancy he escapee any taxation by that means, ilel still smokes his pipe, or has his glass of ale, or at least wears clothes, uses tools, and drinks tea and sugar, and in this wav he pays for the postal service. Postage stamps may cost him little or nothing, but postage stamps after all only cost about a fourth part of the whole sum to »nv one. The merchant buys his postage stamps and f posts hi* letters, but in doing so be only

pays about a fourth part of the cost of jseiuling them, while the other threefourths «ru borne for t!ie most part by t!lonian who does not send letters at all. This, then, is class legislation of the very worst sort. The rich man sends his letters with a view to trade which is to make him more rich—the poor man does not send any letters, but he pays a large share towards the rich man’s convenience. This

is the general result of our examination ; but there are other and more particular results not to be lost sight of. The vice of making one part of the community pay for the convenience or gain of auothpr part is deliberately followed out in every way. if there is a more scattered population in one province than another—tor instance, a number of sheep-stations, with perhaps a few members of Assembly residing there at times —the mails in that province are more numerous and costly than in another where the population is closer together or not so impatient for fre-

quent communication. Thus, as we have seen, Marlborough costs three times as much for its mails as it pays in the way of postages, and Canterbury and Otago more than twice as much, although they have a Large postal revenue. The Southern Island costs nearly £30,000 a year more for inland postage than its revenue pays, while the Northern Island costs less by £3,000 than its revenue will meet. These, we maintain, are tbo marks of bad management in our rulers, who are either ignorant of the principles of justice or careless about putting them in practice. In the ordinary every day affairs of life these principles are fully recognised. No man in his senses looks to his neighbour to pay a share ol Ins baker’s bill, or to help him to meet the

quarterly claims of his family butcher. The idea is regarded as too absurd even for consideration, and yet it is no easy matter to see why a man should pay hall ti'.o postage on his neighbour’s business letters any more than half the price of his loaves and beef. Taera is a sort of notion abroad that there is a great difference between the principles that are to be looked lor in the actions of a Government and I hose to bo insisted on in the dealings of man and man ; and, so far as our inquiries have carried us, wo think there is reason in the idea, so far us oar Government is concerned. We look, but look in vain, for the principles of fairness between one class of the community and another which would bo enforced between a man and his neighbours. We eco offices made and upheld in all the plentitude of red tape for the purpose, as we are fully convinced, of finding work for placemen to do, and so of finding patronage for ministers. We see postal services set on foot and kept up for the benefit of one class of tiro coaimu nity or one di-trict at the expense, for the most part, of others who have little or no share in the advantages, lu all this we have not spoken against these postal services in themselves. We want, lirh of alt, to induce the public to insist that the burden of them shall be laid upon tne proper shoulders, we are sure that this step, once taken, the whole thing will right Itself ere long. When the merchant has to p.iy for his special mail services, be will take into consideration the question whether the benelit is equal to the cost: when the scattered settlers of a district had that they do not get their frequent mails at other people’s expense they will perhaps grow contented with a more rare communication. This is not quite all, however. It applies to such a question as the continuance, after the present contract terminates, of a high subsidy for a Panama service ; but it does not apply to the performances of the Central Post-office in Wellington, with its £3,200 worth ot clerks. The Panama service is a fair investment of money which may pav or may not pay an adequate return'; but the inane letter and memorandum-writing, and return collecting about every conceivable and some inconceivable trifles, are anything but a lair investment of the money ol this colony. They are simply a waste, not only owing to what they do not do, but perhaps even more to what thev manage to accoaip.ish. It is bad enough to pay so much money away for salaries that are not earned by useful work ; but it is surety a serious public evil that the clerks ot the head oflice should be engaged in the spider-hko task of weaving meshes ot red tape round the clerks of every pest-1 cilice in the colony. We are very welli aware that what we say can hardly bej palatable either to those in power or to those of whom we speak, but our first dul y is to the public, and we wisli first of ail to make the position of matters clear to them. Our own view of a reform is twofold. We would first make the cost of postal sen ices fail, as far as possible, upon those for wuose benefit they are maintained, and in the second, would do away with the thousand and one childish absurdities which appear to be so dear to the soul 01 tiie Postmaster-General, and which find a languid sort of employment for the clerks who spend their time m Hie General Postoiiice department at Wellington.