Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY. APRIL 22. 1899. Taxation.

Manawatu Herald, 22 April 1899, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY. APRIL 22. 1899. Taxation.

Following up the leader in our last issue we desire to still further impress upon our readers the advantage that direct taxation would be towards diminishing the extravagant expenditure by any government. We cannot expect reforms to be made at once, and thus whilst urging the claim to a free breakfast table, which would comprise more items than merely tea and sugar, we do so as being more in accordance with Liberal professions, and as a thin «dg« of tbe wedge towards the discos-

tinuance of indirect taxation in any shape. There is a yearly expenditure in accord with the yearly revenue, and the revenue is increased, never yet decreased, so as to provide the sums to be spent. We have taken the typical New Zealand family to number five, which if anything is under the mark, and therefore safe to measure the yearly cost. It may come as a bit ot a surprise to some to learn that last year each family of five persons, whether the children were but babies or of an age to earn their living, had to deliver unto the Government the sum of £18 9s 7d, which is quite twenty-five per cent, of a workman's income. If this amount had, like the land tax, to be paid at the Post Office, what an outcry would be raised, but because the Government carefully conceal their portion of the profits charged by the shopkeeper nobody says a word. The total amount of revenue raised was £2,678,576, and excepting £671,145 for land and income tax, the whole was raised by indirect taxation, that is, so much received for every pound of tea or sugar, or tobacco sold, and for every yard of dress 3tuff, and in fact on everything eaten, drank, worn or smoked, had an extra price put on to it, to give the Government money to spend; Statistics are stubborn things, and however careful a man may be, yet each person big or little, rich or poor, has to find £3 13s lid for expenditure. A father with a large family must often wonder where the money goes that he earns, and he will now have an opportunity of doing just such a little sum, by adding up the number of -those dependant on him and then multiplying the result by £3 13s 1 id, and thus ascertain the interest he holds in the good and economical Government of the colony. Our taxation is obtained in the proportion of 75 per cent, from Custom (indirect) sources, whilst Tasmania raises only 70 per cent, of revenue that way, South Australia and Victoria only in the proportion of 64 per cent., whilst New South Wales only raises half her revenue in this manner. This is important to bear in mind, as much as is also the fact that New South Wales has only a ratio of taxation of 37s lid per head; Victoria, 45s 8d ; South Australia, 473 6d ; and Tasmania, 57s 2d.