MINISTERIAL POLICY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5457, 23 September 1878, Page 2

MINISTERIAL POLICY.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND. TIMES. Sir, —Were the bulk of mankind as much influenced, directly, by rational considerations as-they are frequently assumed to be, we might be surprised to find any protest being made against the Colonial Treasurer's proposal to abolish the duty on grain and flour. As it is, cue can quite understand that as the interests affected by the change suffer an immediate loss, in this, as in the case of the beer tax, an outcry is raised which is altogether unreasonable. . Whatever may have been the case formerly, in our day we know enough to be perfectly certain that neither landowner nor farmer has any right to have his profits increased at the cost of the rest of the community, by any system of “ protection.” A tariff framed in the interests of producers instead of in that of consumers is essentially vicious. It is, too, satisfactory to find that the duties on a large number of small articles are given up. The modern English mode of-raising revenue by heavier duties on a few articles, instead of by lighter duties on numerous articles, has proved eminently successful. At the same time it must be remembered that less barm will be done, and a larger revenue raised, by moderate than by exhaustive taxation, no matter what form it may assume. The one blunder made in the list of articles proposed to he struck out of the tariff is that in includes “iron wire.” On what' principle the £5038 derived from the duty on wire should be thrown away I am at a loss to conceive. It was in no sense protective, it was too small to affect- the use of the material, and it fell chiefly upon large landowners. Unless the remission was intended as a sop to them, or to bring up the reduction of Customs to about £20.000 under this heading, the particular item must have been settled by “ a toss-up.” Subject to this qualification it is pleasant to funl even 'this small amount of sound principle in proposals which taken as a whole are anything but a credit to the Government. For Mr. Ballance there is indeed some excuse. As his notorious speech at Marton showed, his ideas of finance are to say the least “ extremely mixed.” The proposals he then made were almost beneath criticism. When we remember hia antecedents there is nothing surprising in this. He has arranged the details of his Budget on a plan which his business experience had suggested to him. In the little jeweller’s shop which he formerly kept he must have learned that though “all that glitters is not gold” it frequently sells as well. Among a certain class the demand for cheap brummagem articles is enormous. Just now there is a similar demand for a sort of liberalism which bears about the same relation to real liberalism, that pinchbeck does to gold. The one looks as well as the other till both are used. Any political u cheap jack” who thinks the game is worth the candle can go about the country and get as many votes as he pleases, in exchange [for his trumpery wares. While Sir George Grey has been actively engaged in fomenting class ; jealousies his Treasurer has been quietly pretending to satisfy them. . In the character of “ the moderate man,” he no doubt thought that he should please all parties and pave the way for his own future advancement, possibly at the expense of hia chief. The real danger lies not so much in what has ; been done as in the encouragement it gives to others to do more in the same direction. If, as is more than probable, it should prove that a hundred thousand pounds has been simply thrown away, the majority will care nothing for it if they fancy that the loss -does not fall upon themselves but upon a minority that they have been taught to dislike. In such an event the last thing they will think of doing will be to retrace their steps. What is now taking place in Victoria ought to be a sufficient warning to us. An ignorant democracy, in its anxiety to gain its ends, is apt to overlook thq t essential means. Before wealth can be distributed it is evident that it must first be produced, and security, is as necessary to its production as the stability of the earth is to the growth of a tree.

There are indications both in the House and in the country that legislation based upon what Bentham calls “the principle of antipathy’* might become popular. Mr. Stout usually speaks of landowners as if to own land at all, though legally right, was morally wrong, though as he has lately fc aksa )o quote from Mr. Harrison, the Positivist writer, he may at length come to agree with Comte that to exchange individual for communal, or State ownership, would he a retrogression in the progress of humanity. Other members, and no small portion of the Press, frequently indicate a wish to get at the large capitalists, seemingly more for the sake of hurting them than of benefiting anyone else. In fact from the Premier downwards there is a tone of childish spite adopted in discussing such matters, which more than any other require to be dealt with in a scientific spirit, which bodes ill for the future of the country. It seems to be forgotten that a capitalist as such is performing a most useful social function. To the extent to which he saves and invests his means he occupies a position not unlike that of a public trustee. He may carry the virtue of “ abstinence’* —as Mill graphically calls those, savings of labor which constitute capital—to a ridiculous extreme for his own personal comfort, but so long as he saves and invests he must benefit tho community. As Adam Smith says—“ The produce of the soil maintains at all times nearly that number of inhabitants which it is capable of maintaining. The rich only select from tho heap what is most precious and agreeable. They consume little more than the poor; and iu spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own coavcniency, though tho sole end which they propose from the labors of all the thousands whom they employ be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements,* They are led by an invisible hand to make neatly tho same distribution of the necessaries of life which would have been made had the earth been divided in equal portions among all its inhabitants.” I commend this passage to the consideration of a Government which, for tho first time in tho history of New Zealand, has attempted to set the comparatively poor against the rich, and which has introduced measures deliberately intended to separate the interests of the many, from those of the few, in order to strengthen its own position. It is a significant fact that the warmest friends of the Ministry have been the first to denounce tho impolicy and injustice of such proposals. Even in the details of administration a similar spirit is apparent. Time after time we hear of officers of the Government being- dismissed seemingly for no other reason but that they happen to bo gentlemen, while others are appointed chiefly because they are not. In judicial matters there is tho same flagrant disregard of even the appearance of propriety. The decisions of magistrates are over-ruled or set aside without even the form of consulting them being gone through, and it is "becoming understood %\t an appeal from the Bench to the people is certain to meet with the. approval SAJinistcrs,

ami will generally succeed. Those who in various ways give their gratuitous services to the public are treated with marked discourtesy if. known to bo opponents of tho present Government by those members of it who are unable to perceive that an insult is stinglcss if it ia undeserved. But while men of character and position who are independent of the Government can sustain no personal Injury from such treatment, its social effects will be extremely injurious. “Whatever may be the end of morals/’ says Mr. Becky in his 11 History of England in the Eighteenth Century,” “ the greatest happiness of the greatest number is undoubtedly the rule ia fi politics, and a system of government which throws all power into the hands of one class, of the smallest class and of the richest class, is assuredly not calculated to promote it. But it i"- one thing to give a class a monopoly of political power; it is quite another thing to entrust it, under the restrictions of a really popular government, with tho chief share of active administration. A structure of society like that of England which brings tho upper classes into such political prominence that they usually furnish tho popular candidates for election, has at least the advantage of saving the nation from that government by speculators, 'adventurers, and demagogues which is the gravest of alt the evils to which representative institutions are liable.” To prevent the growth of such a class and to prevent it from exercising one of its moat important functions seems to be tho special object of the Ministry, and for attaining that end nothing can be more effective than to weed out all that is respectable in public life. An, injurious natural selection is being aided and an artificial one strengthened by transplantation, which with an extended suffrage such as wo have will, to use Mr. Lscky'a words, mhke it 11 possible, apd even very probable, that the supreme management of affairs may .pass -into the hands of men who are perfectly unprincipled, who seek only personal aggrandisement or personal notoriety, who have no real stake ia the country, and who are perfectly reckless of its future and its permanent interests.”—l am, Ac., Economist.