COLONIAL TAXATION

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 1, Issue 22, 17 June 1867, Page 139

COLONIAL TAXATION

’■"> pletao^Examiner.J v XI. . f .■ : -.

writing our last article bn the sntjjbct bfthe postal service, we have been informed that the sum of; £50,000 for the eledtrio telegraph is not wholly swallowed- dpHn the workings expenses Of tha pears tbat a part of the money is devoted to the; extension: of the-telegraph .bdybnd its present limits. Bo far this is welt were also gratified to hear that the receipts o? the .telegraph were nearly equal toVtbe expenditure upon the working of the line. All, this is so far an answer to some strictures, which wa have made upon this- department of Government, and.we are exceedingly glad that so much of -an answer is possible. If ltwere possible to show that all our strictures were capable of‘sufficient answer or explanation we can bnly say we should be gad to find it so. In tliis particular case, however, we not bake the explanation for more than it is worth. The £50,000 for. the telegraph is not as; we had feared it was, a vast sum spent upon unproductive works. The receipts are said nearly to pay the working expenses of the line, and although we should like to- see them do so entirely, we are ready to admit that there are advantages in speedy communications for the good government of the colony which may be allowed to stand against at all events some small deficiency of returns. If it be .true, then, that t here is no great deficiency in revenue from tlie telegraph* we may allow this to stand Tas an example, only too rare, of a department of our Government conducted upon th.e principles on which all the departments ought to be conducted. It is still a queition.ahd a very serious one, how far-.thisfis the time to spend large sums in telegraphic extension, when the .most that can be said for the lines already made is, that their receipts nearly pay their working expense! Works that are in themselves excellent may evidence very great folly or recklessness in those who undertake them, when they cannot afford the cost, and we are inclined £<fl%think that going into new telegraph jfepenses when 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 ,bur rulers.

Putting aside the question of the Telegraph Department, however, we come tb one class of our Postal expenditure which is in some respects quite the most import tant class—we mean that which is apportioned amongst the various provinces. On the whole, this .amounts to- a upwards'of £71,000, and it is expended in the maintenance of the Post-offices, and the carriage of mails from one part of the provinces to another. The first thing to strike an 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 £1,803, and that in Otago £27,400. Taranaki may perhaps be considered an exceptional case, as there is no inland population, so we may substitute the Province of Nelson, in which £2,784 is spent this year upon mails and offices. 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 must see in what proportion the various provinces" contribute to the postal revenue, because if it appears that there, is no fixed proportion between the revenue derived and the money expended in the various provinces, we are forced to the conclusion that here again one part of the public is found paying for the convenience of the other part a principle which we maintain to be false. In 1865, the revenue from the post-offices in Auckland amounted $o £11,548; and for 1866, the expenditure provided for was £8,028. Here the expenditure was little more than two-thirds of the revenue, leaving one-third to pay the steam-services and the like expenses. In Wellington, the revenue amounted to £5,176, leaving about one fifteenth of the revenue for expenditure on steam services, Ac. In Nelson, the revenue was £2,784, leaving nearly as large a deficit as in Auckland there was an overplus. In Marlborough again the revenue .was £853, and the expenditure £2,319, or yearly three times the revenue.- In Canterbury, the revenue was £10,150, and the expenditure £20,623, of more than double the revenue. In Otago, the revenue was £13,600, and the expenditure £27,404, or considerably more than twice the revenue. Auckland, Taranaki, and Wellington are the only three provinces the revenue of which, for 1865,-exceeded the local expenditure for 1866; and it would seem that the further south we go the worse the disproportion is. We have spoken of the Native Department, and the souroe of continual dissatisfaction which it was to the South; it is but fair to remark that if the Native Department has cost £30,000,. spent in the northern island, the local postal expenditure in the southern island has cost beyond the revenue £28,514; while in the northern island the expenditure' was less than the revenue by more than £3,000, thus making np rather more than the £30,000, of which our Otago friends make so muohi ' .

a This, however, is not the , question at present. A comparison of the revenue and expenditure on:' the local ; postal services sliowe clearly that they; are far more expensively conducted in some provinces than ih bthers. ' It is easy to understand that

withi a of.-Nelson, Ha^keteßay^ impossible to . maintain . any postal com mu* nication withontan expenditure iu excess jbf'reiyeiiue); dratit is' not iso easy to see Why Otago' vrifh' a reycri ue of £12,000, should eo8t;,:;£27;00O, of whi. Canterbury with; a ejSn^^off should cost £20,000. be. told that .there --are/so ; many distant settlements to be .proyidedfor that the cost is inevitable, but anypne who knowshowthepopulationisscattefediitl thepro vinca of Auckland; will bee that this is hot thft sole reason why Otago costs £27,000, £nd‘Auckland £8,000 ? fbrift setr-; vicesi. . At all events it is quite the expenditure is too. great in.soWs]gjMk&tt of the colony., As in .many other whioh we havo referred, we areTqtiife aware that we,- tread - hero upon critical ground. There is no doubt that posfSVservices, -bringing letters and papers, are things greatly appreciated by the runholders and diggers in distant .parts of the country, and that, could tliC cdlony afford it, much iqighb be said in favor of giving them this indulgence. We say that the colony cannot now afford it, and that those scattered settlers iu the South must • make up their minds to be more like the scattered settlers in the North, aiid gct a mail once a fortnight or once a month if need be, until the postal revenue will pay postal expenditure. Hitherto, it may be said, we have coufinod ourselves to a general faultfinding with the department, and we are not anxious to deny this as it is more especially our share of the work of reform. In a future article, however, we mean to giye some of our own ideas upon lho important question of how the postal expenditure of this colony may best be brought within the means of the settlers.

NO. XII. - We havo now reviewed the various branches of our postal expenditure,.and, as our readers will havo observed, with more or. less of condemnation at-every stage of onr inquiry. We have found that during this year, 1867, the . cost of our post-offices and telegraph will amouut to about £200,000, while <:the revenue derived from these sources iiot in the least likely to exceed £60,000, at the very highest estimate. We-find, therefore, that by 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 but of the money raised out of the customs taxation. That money is paid by the mass of. the people. The rich man, pays little, fjjfore towards ifcthan the poor man j while, as'we have shewn already, the poor, man is forced to pay far more towards it than he can afford. We wish, first of all, 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 thoir pockets. The labouring man may not write his one letter per month; he may 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 wire 9, 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 escapes any taxation by that means. He still smokes liis pipe, or has his glass of ale, or at least wears clothes, uses tools, and drinks tea and sugar, and in this way 1 he pays for the postal service. Postage stamps may cost him little or nothing, but postage stabaps after all only cost about a fourth part of the whole sum to any one, The merchant buys his postage stamps and posts his letters, but in doing bo he only pays about a fourth part of the cost of sending them, while the other threefourths aro borne for the most part by the man who does not send letters at all. This, then, is class legislation of the very worst sort. The rich mail 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 another 1 part is deliberately followed out in every way. If there is a more scattered population in one province than another—for instance, a number of sheep-stations, with perhaps a few members of Assembly residing there at times—the mails iu that province are more numerous and costly than in another where the population is closer together or not so impatient for frequent communication. Thus, as wo have seen, Marlborough costs three times a 9 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 neavly £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 tbe 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 of his baker’s bill, or to Help him to meet the quarterly claims' of his family butcher. •The .idea ds regarded’ as too absurd even for' consideration, and yet it is no easy matter to gee why a man shoold pay half

on his * neighbour's business any more than half the price, of his h-ty(®®-hn.dh o6 **' There.isia sort of.notion abroad that there isa greatdifference.- be* tweeir the principlea that; are to be looked actions 'of ; a ! ’’Government and t be- iiisisterl bh- 'in 5 the' dealings of think, there is reason in tho iaea, so far as our Government is hut look in vain, for iTw p.riuciples of fairness between one class

Ot ■: tli^r, community and . another , which would be, enforced between a man and bis neighbours. We see offices made and upthe plentitudo of red tape for |tlik ; purpose, as we are fully convinced, of work for placemen to do, and so °t patronage for ministers. We see poSal services set on foot and kept up pfor thdjßenefit of one class of the coinmunity.owono district at the expense,.for the of others who have little or no shtfro iu. the advantages. | In all this wo have not spoken against these postal services in themselves. We want, first of all, to induce the public to insist that the burden of them shall be laid upon the proper shoulders, we are sure that this step, onco taken, the whole thing will right itself ere long. When the merchant has to pay for his special mail services, lie will take into consideration the question whether the benefit is equal to the cost: when the scattered settlers of a district Sfjfcshat they do not get their frequent mails'at' other people’s expense they will perhaps grow contented with a more'rare communication. Tina j s hot 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 1 Post-office in Wellington, with its £3,200 W’orth of clerks. The Panama seiwice is a fair investment of money which may pay 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 auything but a fair investment of the money of this colony. They are simply a waste, not only owing to what they do not do, but perhaps even more' to what they manage to accomp ish. It is bad enough to pay so much money away for salaries that are not earned by useful work; but it is surely a serious public evil , that the clerks of the head office should be engaged in the spider like task of weaving meshes of red tape round the clerks of every pcstoffiee in the colony. We are very well awareiitCafc what we say. can hardiy be palatable either to those in power or to those of whom we speak, but our first duty is to the public, and we wish first of all 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 services fall, as far as possible, upon those for whoso benefit they are maintained., and in the second, would do away with thethousand and one childish absurdities which appear to be so dear to the soul ol the Postmaster-General, and which find a languid sort of employment for the clerks who spend their time in the General Postoffice department at Wellington.