CORN TAXES AND POSTAL SUBSIDIES.

Marlborough Express, Volume IV, Issue 205, 27 November 1869, Page 4

CORN TAXES AND POSTAL SUBSIDIES.

To the Editor of the Marlborough Express. Sir, —I am obliged to you for a perusal of the debates in the Assembly on the question of placing a small duty on grain and flour imported into this Colony. The question was discussed by some members as one between the North and South Islands. It was alleged that it was a tax on the whole Colony, by which the agriculturists of the South Island would be protected at the expense of the mining community of Auckland. This may be in some degree true, but the farmers of the South Island are, as was shown by Mr. Pitzherbert, heavily taxed through the Native War in the North ; and this is hardly fair if Auckland and the Thames are to be supplied with breadstuff's and oats from California. Mr. Macfarlane stated that Californian wheat was required for mixing, as it was impossible to make good flour from New Zealand wheat alone. He also said that a ton of flour made from Californian or South Australian wheat would produce one hundred loaves more than the same weight of pure New Zealand flour. Sir David Monro cannot see why, if clothing is to be so highly taxed, imported cereals should escape. Neither can I. It is perfect nonsense, while the high duties on every article of clothing from the hat to the shoes, is so highly taxed, to talk about a corn duty being a tax on the staff of life. We cannot live altogether even on Californian flour and go naked. At present if a South Island farmer were to be content with the full dress of a Caffre chief, which it is said consists merely of a cocked hat and a pair of spurs, he could not escape the New Zealand Custom House. If the present tariff is to be maintained, this Colony will be like Spain the paradise of the smuggler. Mr. Graham said that the wealthy classes of the Colony, or the employers of labor, not only paid wages, but often found in food those whom they employed ; while both working and employing classes hacf, to provide their own clothing. This argument ia favor of the corn duty was sure to cause its rejection by the House of Representatives. The House will never, if it can avoid it, sanction an Income and Property Tax. A great deal was said about free trade aud protection ; may I ask if importing labor with funds raised from Customs duties like ours, is not protection of the employer of labor against the labor ? It is not really out of the Land Fund. That was mortgaged to the Provincial creditors, and is now to the tax payers of the Colony as security, for the Provincial Loans. Yet Mr. Stevens deliberately proposed to devote the released Sinking Fundsl of Provincial Loans to Immigration No member, however, seemed to notice the fact, that while the Assembly taxes British manufactures to the utmost, it is admitting the produce of the United States free Perhaps Sir George Grey, in one of his lectures in England on the benefit which Great Britain derives from her Colonies, will state the fact that if this Colony was an independent State its tariff could hardly be more hostile to Great Britain than it is. Our two Commissioners will most likely be told this when they come to press the claims of the Colony for assistance in the native imbroglio on the British Government. English Chambers of Commerce are protesting against Colonial tariffs. They ask, “Why should we be taxed for the (Worw-o n f Qnlnni f.sjvhnse tariffs are,mare hostile to us than those of France or Italy V The question is at least natural, and not easily answered. But not content with admitting the produce of the United States free, while that country places a prohibitory duty on all wool except that produced in the United States, our Assembly has directed the Government to advertise for tenders for a monthly mail service to San Francisco. True, the Assembly has limited the payment to £20,000 per annum., aud the service will cost at least six times the amount; but there are parties in Wellington who, if they possessed the power they did in 1863, would cause this Colony to enter into another contract like the Panama, if they were only sure that Wellington would be the terminus or even the port of call. In the usual way, absurd statements as to the time in which a mail could be sent from New Zealand to London via San Francisco have been made by Colonial newspapers. It has been asserted that this can be done in 37 days. Now, I will undertake to prove that even in summer it will take fully 47 days to deliver the outward English mail in Wellington via San Fiancisco and Tahiti, and in the winter of the Northern Hemisphere much longer. Now, 47 days to Wellington means 54 to Melbourne, and 53 to Sydney ; and the route will not amalgamate with the Suez for a fortnightly mail. The British Government, which is willing to pay half the cost of a fortnightly mail service to the seven Australasian Colonies, will have nothing to do with the San Francisco route. They have most distinctly stated that Great Britain would subsidise no other service than that via Suez and Point de Galle, as the great bulk of the letters can be , conveyed by it more swiftly than by any other. And the British Government is right. The San Francisco route will be found inferior to the Marseilles as a mail route to six out of the seven Colonies, New. Zealand being the single exception. Surely the officers of the Hydrographical Department of the Admiralty are better qualified to form a correct opinion as to the comparative merits of mail routes than the Legislature of this or any other Colony. As for any trade connection between these Colonies and California, the American* tariff willexclude the Colonial exports. But a monthly mail to San Francisco will enable the merchants of that port to watch -the grain markets of these Colonies so closely that Auckr land, Dunedin, Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane will get all their supplies from America, The New Zealand farmer will be driven out of the Colonial market by the act of his own Legislature. 1 am, &c., • Henry Cooice.