ABOLITION OF GOLD DUTY.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 345, 15 October 1875, Page 3

ABOLITION OF GOLD DUTY.

PUBLIC OPINION AT THE THAMES. (To tlie Editor of the ' Evening Star.') Sin,—On this subject your contemporary (' Thames Advertiser') this morning states that those persons who telegraphed to Mf. O'Connor at "Wellington " truly" represent ttiC opinions of the miners here. I beg leave to .state that I most emphatically deny that assertion, and also affirm that the very parties referred to have very little sympathy with miners any further than such sympathy would save their own interests. I wish to state that it is my opinion that there is no intelligent man who is entitled to the name of miner that does not approve of the conduct of Sir George Grey in trying to have this infernal tax abolished. I have noticed that for years past the ' Advertiser' had been crying out against tlie iniquity of this tax and most imperiously demanding to have it abolished. Then why does it assume the attitude in this matter.that it does jn this morning's leading article P Are the reasons it has given for so doing honest and just? I believe that they are not, and that this " ratting" from the interests of miners is because Sir George Grcv having moved in the matter they are bound to oppose him. However, taking as granted that those reasons are just ones : it is admitted that the tax itself is unjust, but inasmuch as the duty fails principally on the banks and mining companies here, it should be retained so as to make such persons pay that revenue to the country which they should pay, and which otherwise without thistax they would not pay—that is, you retain an unjust tax on a whole class of people so as to make a few persons contribute their just share of tho revenue of the country. In fact, in an unjust manner you want to do a just thing. To say the least, thi3 is abominable legislation. There are other reasons which remind me of' Dargaville-a logical reasons for putting the five per cent, tax on gum, but as this latter tax was immediately and ignomiuiously repealed, so ought the former one to have been abolished long ago. Besides, the Thames does not comprise all the Goldfields in the Colony and, if the so-called miners on the Thames do not so much feel this obnoxious tax, that is no valid or just reason why we should compel a man*or miner in other places who may get a quarter or half an ounce of gold a day to have to pay 2s. 6d. per ounce duty on it. The advocacy for tho retention of the gold duty is petty, selfish, and illogical. If there are persons in companies who will benefit by its abolition, and thereby escape paying that portion of taxation which they justly should pay, why not in any Goldfield measure that may be passed in the Assembly insert a clause that would compel such persons to pay their right proportionate share? _ I have been perhaps more than an individual opponent of this iniquitous tax in the Australian Colonies nearly since it became the law of the country there until it was finally to be about abolished. I still hold that here also it is a most unjust impost on a class of deserving persons, and trust that Sir George Grey will earn the gratitude of the miners of Zealand by having it abolished.—l am, &c., A Minee. Thames, September 23rd, 1875.