COLONIAL TAXATION.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume XII, Issue 500, 15 August 1867, Page 1

COLONIAL TAXATION.

{Nelson Examiner.) KO. XVII.

Those who have followed us in onr criticisms anon our institutions mid their working, may be inclined to inquire in what direction they all tend. They may be inclined to ask what wo mean by suggesting evils of Government in every direction, unless it is merely with the view of exercising the Englishman's privilege of grumbling. It is of course an easy matter to find fault, when compared with the task of suggesting amendments upon the faulty system complained of, and our task in dealing with the whole question has been of this kind. Even if this were all we had done or hoped to do, however, we should not be ready to acknowledge that our work had been of a useless kind. It is (rue that the criticism of the past and present, and not the construction of the future system, has been our task ; and so far are we from thinking this useless or unworthy in itsell, that we are not sure we arc called upon to go further than this. In a colony such as this is, there should be many amongst our legislators who would gladly seize upon such materials as we have afiordecl, and out of the system of mismanagement we have been speaking of, construct a system more suited to our wants, and less extravagant in its working. Nor do we at ail despairol finding this the case when the General j Assembly meets again. We have nol.| however, as may be supposed, given so! much attention to the question of our 1 mismanagement, without forming somej uu-as us to a better system which might I not be open to the many objections wej have urged against things as they now are.) llelore we attempt to lay any of these be-) fore our readers, it may nut be without’ advantage to state the general view of the question on which we proceed. ( The position o( .New Zealand, which in| many respects is a peculiar one, is not bv any means a difiieuit one either to under stand or to deal with. With the exception of the native difficulty in the north, it would be ditlicuh to find a colony be tnig more evidence of llie resources which produce prospeiiry. i’o-sessed of a sea j coast almost unparalleled for its extent n d! the number and excellence of its harbours,! we have everything to lead us to expect a great future as a maritime nation, making our ports depots for th : coimnoi cc of tiu* neighbouring Colonies, and becoming in fact the carriers in these seas. If we look inland, we find great plains and rich vnl leys that seem to show this country was intended by nature for a great agiieulturai country, its climate,--fitted beyond toat of any country in the world of its size for bringing a great variety -of agricultural products to perfection ; Us ports, inviting us by their ixcellenco* and abundance to use them for shipping superabundance to Other colonies Jess favored in these respects. To these peeuliaiiiies must be added our great stores of coal and our remarkable gold dep- sits ; the second appearing to be provided lo bring the necessary capital and labor to our shores for developing the first, and alt the various arts which follow in its train. : J hese seem lo us to be, in a Lw words, the leading features of wiiat nature has done for this colony, and they appear to amou,.t to all that could be done lo render New Zealand specially the working man's colony.

If wc turn to (ho facts of the case as tvi have discovered them to be by our analyse of the various departments of our Governinent, we dud that we have been laboring for years to do away with the advantages nature has bestowed on us. If it is true that nature has done much fjr us, it is no less true that we have systematically refused to do any tiling fur oui-.-eiv.s—or rather have seemed bent on doing everything against our own interests. As we are now governed, New Zealand is tile colony of all colonies to be shunned by the poor settler. Goldfields may indeeo bring labour to our shores, but as soon agold fails it will go as it came, leaving u lutletae belter for the discovery. Tin. reason is a simple one—nothing short ol gold-digging wul pay in such a country. U’e send agents to iingland, Scotland, ana Ireland, to invite iimnLraiiou to out colony year alter year, aim yet we seevo y little progress from their labours. Tin truth is tnat it is in vain to hope for sue cess while everyone who has come lias sill the same tale to tell of grouting taxation, making trade dull and limes hard to a degree not oft-n known except in oiu countries. If once more we ask, U hat u the state of our trade ami commerce, w. meet with no more encouraging answer. Uulness, depression, stagnation, ate th. words that meet us at every nr.-,-, with astonishing and grievous reiteration. It i, in vain that we try to account for tain bv refeuMig it, in one part tf the c ; untry to over speculation, in another to tiie naliw war; in a third, to the tiding t ,li' of the go'm-fie.ds, or to disappointment in the yield of those have been discovered. The very fict that we are driven to find son,, new cause to account lor the same effeei in eve:T part ut the colony is quite enough to show that, witu all the variety of one circumstances, the very same evil is at tin root of this universal depression— tlm evil, taxation. It is only beginning to b-. known, even bv (hose who sulfe-v severely from the results, that this is the real evil, but the truth can hardly be kept back much longer from the general public. The New Zealand colonist, conscious that the country possesses resources such as hardly

any other colony in the world can boast finds himself the most heavily taxed man probably in the world, and finds moreover that even the elasticity of New Zealand’s resources is rapidly giving way under the’ Km'^an

The question forced upon us, therefore, is a very large one. It may in a few words he said to amount to this: Is our wholeplan of Government to be overturned or remodelled ; oris this colony, so richly gifted, to become little better than a beacon to other young countries to warn them away from the dangers on which wc have been shipwrecked ? Probably no one would bo inclined to admit that he desired to see the latter event take place, though some may yet see that this is the ionly alternative. We are, however, convinced that it is so. We glance down the long array of the heads of our expenditure, and we sec no one item wholly satis-' factory. The Native Department is only a premium upon disaffection, and a school in which natives learn to treat us with the contempt which leads to war—yet the Native Department costs us somewhat near £50,0 JO a year. Our postal arrangements satisfy no one throughout tne colony, yet they cost nearly £gOO,OCK) a year. Our Civil Service generally is universally felt to be the most cllete system of red tape—a mere refuge in too many

''uses for clerks, too useless or too lazy for mercantile employments—and tnis (vice is increasing ut the progressive rate of more than £ la',ooo, while it has already .reached the enormous cost of £IOO,OJU a year. The people of New Zealand have it in their power to alter this if they will. .They are not dependant on any one man or any one Cabinet tor a reform, because these are after all nothing more than their servants. Let the public once decide that reform is necessary, and the men will so n be found who will render it possible. If (lie present men do not —then others will.