The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, MAY 18, 1872.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 118, 18 May 1872, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. SATURDAY, MAY 18, 1872.

Nelson City Rifles. — At the special meeting of this Company held at the Drill Shed, on Thurday evening last, Mr. G. Sinclair was elected Captain in the place of C. L. Maclean, Esq., resigned; Ensign A. W. Barnett, Lieutenant, in the place of , Mr. McCabe, resigned; and Sergt. Burn, Ensign, in the place of A. W. Barnett, promoted. Provincial Council. — Mr. O'Conor has given notice that on Monday next he will move, That it would tend to the material prosperity and advancement of this Province, by securing a more judicious public expenditure, and a more advantageous disposal of the Waste Lands of the Crown, if the Nelson South-west Goldfields were placed under a separate and ocal form of Government. Resident Magistrate's Court. — The Court has been occupied the whole day with the case of Holmes v John Symons, in which the plaintiff, who was master of the Charles Edward, claims the sum of £100 for wrongful dismissal from the service of defendant. Mr. Pitt appeared for the plaintiff, and Mr. Fell for the defendant. The hearing of the evidence had not terminated at the time of our going to press. An abandoned BKiG-.--Captain Walker! of the Lady Barkly, informs us that he learned from some men, who had seen the brig reported to be off Wanganui inlet knocking about there for two or three days with a strong easterly wind blowing, that she must have been a coal vessel bound through the Srrait, and could not possibly be the Magnet, as at the time she was seen, about nine weeks ago, the Magnet was in Melbourne. TAXATION— SPEAKING OUT. The following letter is copied from an English journal, and is addressed to Mr. Lowe, Chancellor of the Exchequer, by Mr. St. Swithin Williams, a tradesman at Oxford. Sir — It is my deliberate intention not to pay the income-tax. In a humble way I shall do what Hampden did about the ship-money; I shall take care not to break your laws, but within the limits of your laws I shall withstand you to the utmost. ■'.'■ I refuse to pay your demand for the same reason that I should resist the demands of a highwayman or a burglar. Archbishop Whateley reminds us that it is only ao far forth as the taxation of a country is a fair charge for the services rendered by the Government that taxation differs from avowed robbery. Now, is forty-three millions a year a fair charge for the services rendered to us by the tax-consumers? Everyone knows that ail the real good you do for us could be done for very much less than forty-three millions a 1 year. This is admitted by every minister when out of office. My own conviction is that twenty millions'' a year of your taxation is unnecessary: to that extent your taxation is robbery. In return for shameless taxation you fail to perform the first duties of a Government., So ignorant are you of the art of war, that ten thousand British soldiers, when led by you, are no match for aJbandl ful of Maori barbarians. You cannot even tether our troop horses. Our seamen you run aground and drown. Hundreds of thousands of labor's hard earnings you fling into the waves jatAlderney; but/our* commercial ports, lon whose safety our food depends, you leave, with sinister design, open to bombardment? Your miserable allowance to witnesses and prosecutors in courts of justice, compels policemen and all prudent men td shut theiL eyes, when fcrime is committed. In order to check the growing wealth and power of (the industrial and commercial , classes, you contrive insolvency, andibankruptoy laws which , enable the, extravagant and dish °P;_ B ? # v d efraud; ; Jhe,, industrious^ and i thntty of thousands ofc millions.^ ; ,£sss»£ i

It is not because it is the income-tax that I refuse to pay you. I wish that I could raise the issue on some (ax still more iniquitous; such as the millions you snatch from poor people's necessaries — their tea or sugar. As T neither import nor make taxed articles, I can challenge you only on a direct tax. Nor do I wish to shirk my duties as a citizen; quite the contrary. When the Crimean war had proved to ue the imbecility of your standing armaments, I was one of the first to become a volunteer — a voluoteer in earnest. If I save this incometax from your clutches I shall offer it as a donation to societies for promoting political reform — the Financial Reform Association, &c. Your fallacy, that if I pay you less some one else must pay you more, deceives no one who understands your expenditure — you just squander all that you can lay your hands on. True, you apply a little now and then to a sham reduction of the national debt ; but you run us into debt again the first opportunity ; so that our. national debt is about as much to-day as it was forty years ago. Could you rob us of another teu millions a year you would govern us no better ; you dare not rule us worse if we.saved twenty millions a year from your bottomless pit. Until members, who are or hfive been lax-consumers, or whose fathers or sons or sons-in-law are tax-consumers, are excluded from voting on questions of taxation, it is absurd to look to Parliament for a reduction of taxation. For you make it the interest (pecuniary or social) of a majority in both Houses to increase the expenditure. A national refusal to pay unnecessary taxation is our only remedy; and it is a sure one. You tried to tax our American brethren against their will, and you failed. The Irish peasantry got rid of your church cess and your tenants' tithes by dogged non-payment. A few dissenters steadfastly refused to pay your church-rates, and church-rates had to be abolished. You can rob us of our chairs and tables, but they will be of no use to you if we will not buy them of you. In the hope that others may be induced to follow my example, I shall publish this letter.