New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4532, 29 September 1875, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29.

Everyone respects Sir George Grey, but that does not prevent anyone from recognising the fact that Sir George at times says very foolish things. On Monday evening the leader of the Opposition propounded a scheme, for providing what is known as a free breakfast table in this colony, of a most ridiculous character. He desires to save enough by cutting down the salary of the Governor and others to enable a remission to be made of the duties on tea and sugar. Sir George has got hold of the wrong idea, that because two opposite things are right, a third, not'connected with either of them, must he right also. By all means let salaries be reduced, though we question the reduction of that of his Excellency, which is no more than his office demands and the colony should pay. There is no more consistent advocate in this colony of Free Trade than the New Zealand Times, and it needs no assertion on our part to show that we are in favor of doing away with taxes on tea and sugar. But it does not follow by any means that reducing salaries will give a free breakfast table, or that before taking the duties off tea and sugar the salaries of civil servants must be reduced. Sir George’s mode of accomplishing his object will remind everyone of the Irish officer’s effort to get near his brother, who was also in the army. He exchanged into the 50th to be close to his brother in the 51st, forgetting that numerical did not mean local propinquity. The two financial propositions of Sir George Grey affect distinct financial questions. A reduction in the cost of the Civil Service is much needed ; but it is all nonsense tinkering at such a reduction in order to remit a few paltry duties, and without taking into consideration the general system of economy in all its affairs, which the colony cannot enter upon a moment too soon. The duties upon tea and sugar cannot be taken off a moment too early, though an examination of their amount will show that they make but a very trifling sum indeed in the national resources, and that their abolition would be felt rather in increased profit to the sellers of tea and sugar than in a decreased expenditure by the buyers of the same. But the abolition of these duties is mere nonsense, in the face of the general readjustment of the incidence of taxation which the condition of New Zealand imperatively demands. As taxation at present falls, it presses lightest on those who moat benefit by it, and heaviest on those who gain the least by it. It is almost an insult to repeat here the well-known axiom that the object of all taxation is; the preservation of the lives and property of the community. The man, then, who obtains most from taxation, is he who has the most property to be guarded. At present he pays the least towards the general fund for this purpose, whilst an artisan with a large family and but little property in reality pays the most. Those who are anxious to distinguish themselves by readjusting our finances, either in the way of reduction of expenditure or abolition of certain duties, must take their measures in accordance with the plain principles and lessons of political economy which have been just summarised. Such a readjustment as that proposed by Sir George Grey, is only a petty patchwork way of doing things, and the reasons for it can only be surmised by the knowledge that a splendid popular cry at election time is “a reduction of a bloated Civil “ Service,” and an equally effective hustings appeal is “a free breakfast table.” That may not be the reason why Sir George connects the cutting down of the Marquis of Nobmanby’s salary with sixpence a week less to be paid for sugar by John Thomas, laborer, but it would be a potent reason with many, and may appear to recommend itself to the leader of the Opposition.