NEW ZEALAND TAXATION.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 99, 6 January 1871, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND TAXATION.

If there be any excellence in taxation —a fact often doubted we should deem it to be that it impinged proportionately and equitably on all classes of society in the country where levied. The poorer classes should be called on to contribute as small an amount as possible, so that they may have every facility afforded them of providing the necessaries of Hfej and of rising from their sordid condition. An individual or company starting a new enterprise should not have a heavy impost laid on their undertaking until it is proved to be remunerative. If found necessary to tax labor, tax it indiscriminately, above a certain annual amount. Strict impartiality, with a due consideration forweakness and poverty, helps to make

'taxation- less o >jec, ion;i.hJ*f ■ We have | been led to these considerations by obl serving the relative amount of taxation I contributed by the different classes of our community. Goldiniuing is more heavily taxed than, any other class of J colonial industry. The justice of this we cannot understand' —and having well-established mining journals, and Goldfields members, we invite general attention to.the subject, hoping"to get the evil removed. It in well known how hard and precarious a calling Goldmining has assumed. Miners from thensituation have to pay the highest price of any of the-colonists for the supply of their wants. Often in difficult'and inaccessible places, they have to walk long distances for their provisions, purchased at a dear rate, and retire to their camps carrying their provender on their backs ere roads have been made or pack tracks discovered. Their earnings as a rule are not large—their privations, risks, and difficulties considerable. Goldmining should be fostered not imposed on. No other known agent could | have so speedily peopled A ustraiia and New Zealand as the discovery of payable gold. No matter where the rush takes place, after the tide of populations consequent thereon has passed away, cottages, homesteads, fenced and ploughed lands, trim gardens, the cackle of poultry, and the voices of children remain behind, betokening that families have taken root in that locality, fulfilling the duty of man "to plenish the earth and subdue it." Without it, would this Colony have trebled berpopulation.and increased her revenue sixfold in ten years ? Plow many roads, bridges, and public works generally! has it here helped to form ? Gold m the river bed or terrace is useless until gathered together by labor ; then every, ounce obtained adds to the world's • wealth, and, unlike many other products, effects a permanent benefit Home years I since, when the rating of mines andeolI lieries was under consideration before I a Committee of the House of Commons, it was argued by Mr. Dobson that coal and other minerals should be subject at least to a reduced rate to other produce—as every ton of coal, iron, or tin extracted was a portion of the corpus of the estate itself, and as such not leI gitimate rateable property. This we I presume is the view taken when imposing an export duty on gold, the Crown taking the landlord's place. It was argued by Messrs. Elliot and Foster I that minerals are absolutely useless un- ; til brought to light and utilised by the ! combination of capital and labor. Hence | a consideration for a light charge. A | farmer can grow a ton of hay or pota- | toea from the soil—and repeat the pro- ! cess—but a ton of coal or an ounce of gold cannot be reproduced. There is no seed time for minerals. In the mother country minerals and ordinary produce are both deemed rateable property, and wheat and potatoes, tin and coal are equally charged—though allowance for wear and tear, depreciation, tenant's rent and tenant's profits is made in charging mineral property. Here minerals alone are exclusively taxed. The right to exact a Eoyalty for .working minerals, by the Crown or landlord is generally admitted—which the miner's right confers in Goldmining; but as we understand the matter it is an almost unheard of thing to charge a certain amount for the occupancy of land and mulct the lessee still further by claiming a share of his produce. The squatter pays for the land on which his sheep run--he is not called on for a tithe of his wool when he sends it to market. A farmer breaks up land under an agricultural lease for which he pays 2s. 6d. per acre—in some of the Provinces without regard to purchasehe is not called on to yield a portion of his crop to increase the Colonial Revenue. (To be continued.)