MR. WATERHOUSE ON THE LAND TAX BILL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5491, 1 November 1878, Page 3

MR. WATERHOUSE ON THE LAND TAX BILL.

Mr. Waterhouse made au excellent speech on the Land Tax Bill in the Legislative Council. We extract the concluding portions only, which will put the position taken up by the Council towards this Bill plainly before the public :—X cannot, however, sit down without making some observations upon the details of tho Bill. The first prominent detail is the provision with regard to tho exemptions. Now, the exemptions X believe to be utterly vicious in principle.. I have no objection to our all contributing to tho State in proportion to our income : if X have a hundred times more means than another man, it is right that I should pay a hundred times more taxation ; but it is not a sufficient reason for tho other man to be exempt altogether from the burden of taxation ; and the exemption is the more iuiquitablo in this case if this measure is at all to supply tho defect in our tn ’aus created by tho railways not paying sufficiently.the cost of the interest, because the small owners have benefited as much as the large owners in proportion to their means. Indeed, they have benefited to a greater extant than the large owners. It is the small properties that have advanced so much iu value. They have increased ten, fifteen, and twenty times their value of a few years ago, while the large properties have not advanced iu anything like the same proportion. Consequently it is evident that, where the reasons stated by the Colonial Secretary prevail, the exemption of tho small properties from this tax would be markedly inequitable. The exemption is vicious in another respect—-that it has a demoralizing tendency upon the community. It is calculated to raise up a class in society whose interest and desire is will be to throw the burden of taxation upon other shoulders, and to remove it entirely from themselves ; and anything thathas this demoralizing influence is vicious in its principle. For this reason I oppose entirely the principle of exemptions contained iu this BUI. There is another point in tho measure to which I cannot but refer with soma feelings of indignation. It is a point, fortunately, on which I can speak freely because it is one in which I am not personally interested. I refer to the treatment which it is proposed to visit upon the tenants of tho Crown. It is proposed in this Bill that the tenant shall he free from the tax—that it shall bo homo by tho owner of tho property. There is a special exemption whore tho tenant has a beneficial interest in the property : in that case, be will contribute a certain portion. But from the operation of both these clauses the Crown tenants are expressly withdrawn, and one class in tho community is singled out and subjected to an undue portion of tho burden of taxation. Now, I am an advocate of tho Republican cry, “ Liberty,_ fraternity, and equality”—a really noble sentiment; but the equality I advocate is tho equality which every moderate French Republican would advocate. It is equality before the law, equality in taxation : not placing ono class in society below tho other, and imposing upon it burdens that others are not called on to bear. I denounce such a system as fraught with injustice. I denounce it as an act of spoliation and oppression that ought to bo discountenanced by every honest and free man, and against which wo should energetically protest. . . . . . . If there were au appeal from Philhp drunk to Phillip sober—from constituents badly enlightened to constituents well informed—l should say, “ Throw out tho Bill," But the

appeal would be from constituents badly enlightened to constituents still badly informed —to constituents whose passions would be aroused by demagogues, who, regardless of all propriety would go rouud, and, for their own base purposes, would not hesitate to set class against class, and to incite the masses against those who have not tho honor and privilege of belonging to the class which demagogues now flatter as containing the real worth of the colony, but who will be thrown aside as rotten leaves when flattery has accomplished its purpose. For those reasons, disapproving of the measure as I do, and believing it to be vicious in principle, I nevertheless think it would be wise and statesmanlike and prudent of this Council not to refuse to pass it.