The Political Outlook.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1625, 3 February 1886, Page 2

The Political Outlook.

The Watchman, a periodical published m Auckland, has the following opposite remarks on the present political outlook : —Several weeks ago, shortly after the close of the last session of the New Zealand Parliament, we predicted that the Government would hot again face the House. There now seems every probability of our prognostication coming trne. It is quite clear, that the longer Ministers postpone the evil day (to many M.H.R.'s) the worse it will be for them. With the exception of one or two newspapers, nearly the whole Press of New Zealand is opposed to Sir Julius Vogel's gambling scheme, and three-fourths are opposed to ( the projected Protection proposals. The Press of the colony naturally moulds to an appreciable extent public opinion, and the Government proposals are now receiving such a sc ithing hostile criticism from one end of New Zealand to the other, that now or never is the opportunity of tin* (rovernment. A few weeks hence and the people will.be so educated up to the insane, suicidal folly of starting: on a fresh career of borrowing, that the chance of the Government proposals being upheld by the country would be small indeed. Who has benefited mostly by the previous loan? ? The Banks and the lands. Who is paying the piper ? The small farmers, the shopkeepers, and the wages class. What guarantee can Sir Julius give the country, that m the event of a further loan being raised the same old game will not be played over again ? He can give none ; for so surely as the money is borrowed, so suiely will its expenditure be ultimately found to have greatly enhanced the value of the land m certain districts and again it will be found that those who reap immense 'fortunes through such expenditure, and whose properties are permanently benentted by it* will still be evading the payments of their fair share of the increased burden of taxation. When the money is all spent and when the borrowing has come to an end, as it must do, whether it be m five, ten, or fifty years' tinie the whole result may be summed up m one sentence" the rich will be richer, and the poor poorer." If prior to any further borrowing a tax were devised," by which^thosev.who bonefitted by the expenditure; should pay for it, no great objection could be taken to another loan. One tax only would do this, and that is a Land Tax. There would be no necessity then for attempting to saddle any particular district with the cost of its public works, for each acre and each toot of land would contribute according to its increased value. It a property worth a thousand pounds was increased m value by public expenditure to *tßn thousand, the owner of such pro-perty-should pay ten times more m the shape of taxation than when the property was only worth a thousand; but no, that is not the way we do things m this country, we spend the people's money and greatly enhance the value of private property, and then we make the whole people pay for it by taking their tea and sugar.