THE POOR MAN’S FRIENDS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5437, 30 August 1878, Page 3

THE POOR MAN’S FRIENDS.

(From the Timaru Herald, 24th August). Mr. Ballance’s Financial Statement undoubtedly created a favorable impression in the country at the time when it was delivered. There were several reasons why it should do bo. The results of last year’s operations wore highly satisfactory, calculated, in fact, to put everybody in good humor. Then there was a clearness about the accounts, aud a simplicity in the balancing of estimates of receipts and expenditure which presented a favorable contrast to the laborious muddles of former Budgets. Then the idea of a reduction of the duties on necessaries was a pleasant one, while that of a duty on land was not by any means depressing. Landowners wore relieved by finding the duty fixed so low, and tho rest of the community were contented to escape taxation. “ There is something not displeasing to us,” says Rochefoucauld, “ in the misfortunes even of our dearest friends.”The beer tax was not so popular, but the impression that it would not fall on the consumer rendered it less unpalatable than it would otherwise have been. The tax on joint stock companies was approved of in proportion as it was not understood ; while tho change from ad valorem to specific duties was hailed as a reform without its actual effect on the taxpayer being at all carefully examined. In short, Mr. Ballanoe acquired a reputation as a statesman and a fiuauoier with a degree of ease aud suddenness which must have astonished himself more than anybody else. We could not help chuckling when we read all the flattering praises to him in the newspapers which habitually support the Government, saw his Financial Statement trumpeted as the ablest that had ever been delivered, and learnt that it placed him at once in the foremost rank of colonial statesmen ? His reputation, as wo have said, was sudden, but it was also very brief. He went up like a rocket, and he is fast coming down like the stick. The country has now had a fortnight to think over the details of the Budget, and has already found out that there is nothing iu it. Cut hono is tho question that is now on everybody’s lips. If tho country is so prosperous, if the revenue is more than sufficient for all purposes, if all our institutions aro working so well, why in tho name of common sense should we trouble ourselves about imposing now taxes, remitting old ones, establishing an excise, hampering trade, and generally disturbing things that are just as well let alone ? Quicta non movcrc. Then people, from taking this passive view of matters, go on to enquire actively into tho particular merits or demerits of tho various changes proposed. Tho inquiry lends to rather discomfiting conclusions, aud makes it appear very questionable whether a little less ” statesmanship” and a little moro principle would not bo an ‘advantage. Tho first thing that tho public have discovered _ is that tho budget is very hard on colonial industries. This is probably not intentional on Mr. Ballance’s part, but is simply an-accidental result of a number of financial experiments made without any reference to ono another. An ignorant apothecary might mix up iu a bottle half n dozen different drugs and tinctures, having some vague notion of what the effect of each would be, but hot considering whatthe effeotofthemalltogetherwoiUd beupon tho unfortunate patient. ‘ That is exactly what Mr. Ballanoe has done in prescribing finance for tfio colony. He has put in a little beer tax and a little land tax with exemptions, and a little remission of Customs duties, and a

little income tax, and a little specific duties; and he has shaken them ail up together, and offered them to his patient, assuring him that each ingredient is nice enough, and that anyhow the dose cannot do any harm, because it is so “ moderate.” But ho has never thought of whether it will affect the whole system moderately, or whether it will operate iu a concentrated form on one part of the system. It is no credit to a nauseous draft that it is too weak to give us n headache and spasms, if it is strong enough in its general effect to give us a stomachache. We admit that each part of the finance is moderate, milk and watery, feeble, wishywashy. But taken as a whole, in respect of its direct bearing on colonial industries, it is a very stiff dose indeed. No wonder the farmers and others similarly situated are making wry faces now that they come to reflect on the real meaning of it. The land tax undoubtedly falls most heavily on the agricultural community. The dwellers in towns, having invested most of their capital in improvements, such as buildings, stock-in-trade, plant, or what not, for the most part escape it ; but the farmer, whose land is almost his sole capital, has to pay with a vengeance. Ho has given the highest price for his land, and perhas has had to borrow at high rates in order to find the money. The improvements are a mere bagatelle. He is taxed, therefore, on the whole of his possessions, and even in many cases on a great deal which he does not really possess yet. He gains next to nothing by the reduction of the tea and sugar duties, because he buys by retail such small quantities of those articles as he consumes. The great squatter, buying his sugar by the half ton, and his tea by the chest, will get the full advantage of the reduction ; but the farmer will not save ten shillings a year by it. The beer tax, on the other hand, will fall heavily upon him, because, in harvest time, if not in his household, be will buy beer in large enough quantities to enable the brewer to charge him with the duty. It will injure him in another way also by diminishing the manufacture of beer iu the colony, and thus spoiling the market for barley. The change from ad valorem to specific duties again will punish him severely, because, as is shown by many concurrent comparisons, the new duties represent a large increase in the rate of duty on boots, particularly men’s highlows, and all descriptions used by the working classes. Last, but not 'east, the remission of the duty on cereals and breadstuffs will deprive him of the one solitary little bit of protection which he has hitherto enjoyed ; and that at a time when the price of corn is alarmingly low, and when his best hope of making a profit lay in the ability of colonial millers to compete successfully with importers of foreign flour. Each of these blows is light by itself, so “ moderate,” in fact, as not to amount to more than a gentle tap ; but taken all together, they will result in a knock on the head which will make many a struggling farmer stagger. But Hr. Ballanoe is a statesman, not a man of business, and the “ wages class” are his peculiar pets. Our o-Am opinion, and that of a good many others, is that his statesmanship is all moonshine, and that ho knows no more what the effect of his proposals on the people will be, than Ghollah, if there is such a person, does of his “ Great Indian Cures.”