MINISTERS’ NEWSPAPER.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5391, 8 July 1878, Page 2

MINISTERS’ NEWSPAPER.

The Government’s Wellington journal deprecates the assumption by contemporaries that its utterances are inspired. The list of its shareholders, which wo published yesterday, will enable the public to judge of the probabilities of tho case. Explaining a previous utterance on the tariff, which was said to have been prompted by the Government, the journal referred to says :—With regard to the revision of the tariff, wo simply said thaw the most prudent course would be “not to interfere with the Customs duties, at least to the disturbance of existing revenue. T* lla has been construed to indicate that the Government has abandoned all its professions about placing the incidence of taxation on:a mo.ro equitable footing. We fail to see how the words can be made to bear any such meaning. The incidence of taxation can be equitably adjusted as well by increases in one direction as by reductions in another. The question is one, not of amount, but of proportion. The meaning of our words is simply this, that the colony, we believe, cannot afford- to. part with any of its present sources of revenue until it hits new ones to make up tne deficiency. We do not really know what the Government intend to propose -in tho shape of a revision of the tariff. They may attempt it, but we doubt whether, in the coming session, they will be able at beat to do much more than reform a few of the most .glaring anomalies of the present system.— Press, July 5.