'NEW ZEALAND TAXATION.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 101, 20 January 1871, Page 1 (Supplement)

'NEW ZEALAND TAXATION.

A couple of bushmen pay £5 per annum for the right to saw or split wood on Crown lands—too heavy a chaigo perhaps—yet they have not, when they bring a portion of their produce to market, to hand over a percentage of their sales to the Receiver of Revenues. Yet the miner has. In this Province there are 6,500,000 acres of 'Crown lands held under depasturago license, yielding for rent and assessment a yearly revenue of £58,320 — an average of 2d. per acre. The G-oldfields revenue and gold duty amount in round numbers to £40,000 per annum. The value of gold and wool exported in 18G9 amounted to £OOO,OOO and £528,000 respectively. Will it be argued by any sane person for a moment that the privileges conceded to the miner are commensurate pro, rata to. those enjoyed by the squatter ? Take other tenants of the Crown —bushmen. They pay a license of £5, yearly for two men. We suppose thoy can earn £2 10s. per week per man—and their contribution to the revenue is the amount of their license fee. Two miners earning the same amount weekly contribute to the revenue £lO 13s. per annum. Put their earnings at £<! weekly, the bushmen still pay the same amount —tne miners £ls 17s. In Auckland—the model and Imperial Province—still greater anomalies exist. She has lately opened a Goldfield on the Colville Peninsula, known as the Thames and Coromandel, and she has also pastoral tenants. For tho limited area at work on Goldfields in L 869, she realised revenue to the amount of £40,000; while her pastoral tenants, occupying 96,830 acres, pay the handsome yearly rent of £SO ! She lias also leased 300 acres of land for timber license, for which £ls per annum is paid. Were the Goldfields Amendment Act, Ls69, enforced, and 300 acres leased lor auriferous mining, three men to tho acre would have to be employed holding " leaseholders' miners' rights," and £9OO per annum thus charged for the occupancy, and, until the passing of the late Am., 2h. 6d. per ounce be charged ior every ounce of inferior gold tho occupants obtained. How long shall such a state of things endure ? What reason can be given for supporting this export duty on gold ? Is it to crush individual enterprise and prevent men if possible being their own master ? The additional iniquity of this impost is that its infliction is hardest on the poorest. Some miners can for months and years provide for themselves a bare living, yet beside their miner's right they they have to pay for their bare sustenance money over three per cent. per annum to revenue.

Two reasons only appear to us capable of being given for this singularly unjust tax. The first is that a tax on labor is necessary. If such a means of raising revenue be essential, let it- be imposed equally and generally ; let all; contribute from the Premier to the peasant—if we have such a thing here —so much per cent, per annum of our various incomes.

Should, however, the above solution be not the right one, but that it is an easy and convenient task to levy, we can only say the sooner it is abolished the better. When a ship nearly arrives home after a long voyage, it is known to all those "wailing for Jack " some hours before she gets into, port, and when she is moored, standing waiting for him on the wharf, and crowding on board, if allowed, are touts, pimps, courtesans, and the varied kinds of human birds of prey, eager and waiting to despoil him of his hard earnings to enrich themselves. The gold miner seems to be treated in the samo manner. All the Provinces are " wailing for Jack." Some of them offer a largo reward if he will visit them, knowing they can extract from him the money they are unable or unwilling to earn' for themselves.—'Lake Wakatip Mail.' (Concluded.)

H. WILSON, TRINTKB, NAfiHBY