THE NEWSPAPER POSTAGE TAX.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 1, Issue 39, 23 September 1867, Page 235

THE NEWSPAPER POSTAGE TAX.

(From the New Zealand Herald.) If there be one tax more than another which is generally felt as an annoyance, .ind, by individuals, as an unjust and oppressive curden, it is the postage upon newspapers. This resort to increase the revenue has been tr ed in two of the Australian Colonies, but there it is an unpopu lar as in New Z aland, and we learn by more recent advices will be discontinued in New South Wales. It is contrary to the spirit of the age, a drag upon the wheel of education and intellectual improvement, and, in a new country such as this, objeclionable from every poiut of new. (South Australia has never attempted anything of the kiud, and in Tasmania, welcome to the heart of the Colonial Treasurer as an addition to the revenue would have been, no such barbarism has been resorted to for the purpose of increasing it. We trust that the present session of the Assembly will not be allowed to pass without this matter having.been brought prominently forward for discussion. There are in the General Assembly, a number of gentlemen connected with the press, editorially or as proprietors, who uiu.-t, where there are no siatis'ics to guide, be practically aware of the working and result of this impost on the transmission of newspapers. There has, however, been published a statement which shows the results which have followed the imposition of postage ou papers since the first day of the present year in New Zealand. Instead ol there being, in the half-year commencing Ist January, 13(>7, as would have been naturully looked for, iu the number oi papers posted in the colony, over the number posted in the corresponding half-year of 1866, there is a decrease of rather more than one fourth/or at the rate of more than one million papers in the year. Who will say that the public, as individuals, have not been largely inconvenienced by sucli a decrease in the circulation of newspapers ? Who can say to what extent tire public, as . a community, have not suffered by it ? Probably a very large number of the papers would have fouud their way into the villages of Great Britain and Ireland, and have done the work of emigration agents—not among the working so much as among the educated aud better-off' classes at home. The Government by its pennywise system, cuts off, or materially cripples, this cheap, and very useful agency in the colonization of tlie country. /This, however, is but one form of tho ev.l. Within the colony the effects of this decrease are also injuriousl) felt. It is just .the circulation of newspapers in ebuntry .districts which has been affected by the decrease in circulation. The towns do not suffer but the country does, and it is in the country that .the newspaper, as an educating and enlighten-

ing agency, is most needed. The higher class of papers published in New Zealand will bear comparison with those of any young country in the world. These papers reflect not only opinions and ideas which are worthy of being used to train the mind of the rising generation in their duties as citizens and colonists, but reprinted into their columns are to be found the very flower of light literature, so called from the leading English journals. They contain a record of passing events—the conlemporary history of the world— a knowledge of which is essentially to young and old. Where schools are scarce and far apart, where often the newspaper read aloud at the fireside at night is the intelectual cultivation within the reach of hundreds of families, is it wise or prudent to cut off or cripple so civilising an influence? The report, as furnished dnring present session, shows that there is little money or profit gained by doing so. The revenue gained from postage stamps used on newspapers during the first half-year amounted to only £3,800. Will the Government continue to inflict this annoyance and loss on the colony for the sake of an annual sum of between seven and eight thousand pounds ?

The Government have not even the excuse for this tax, that the carriage of the papers, when sent free, increased the contract prices at which the delivery of the mails were undertaken. This was not even the case with the delivery of inland mails, for not a penny has been saved upon the contracts, though the carriage of papers has been lessened by one fourth, nor in the several post offices have the services of a single official been rendered unnecessary. The whole gain to the Government for the first half-year has been a paltry £3,800 paltry when compared with the actual injury to the colony, and annoyance to individuals which have been caused by the raising of this sum j a sum which they recklessly spend on many projects, the abandonment of which would, to say the least of them, would be no loss.