INCIDENCE OF TAXATION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5530, 17 December 1878, Page 3

INCIDENCE OF TAXATION.

(Prom the Daily Teleyrapk , December C.) During the Parliamentary session of 1873 the Hod, Colonel Whitmore deemed it desirable to place on the records of the Legislative Council a motion showing the desire of that branch of the Legislature to agree to any measure that might be required to place on a proper basis the finances of the colony, by providing money to pay the interest on the loans then being raised for public works and immigration. To that e»,(i the honorable gentleman moved, —That t J ' Council desires to record its opinion tha’ it is the duty of the Government to introduce, with the least possible delay, a Bill to provide for the great and increasing liabilities of the colony by means of a general systen of taxation, the incidence of which should be equal oo all classes of the community, and proportionate to the means and profits of the several classes and industries of the colonial population. Last October it fell to the lot of Colonel Whitmore to take charge of the Land Tax Bill, and to move its second reading in the Legislative Council. We need scarcely point out in what respect the gallant Coloners motion in 1873 differs so widely from the Land Tax Bill of 1878. The one affirmed the desirability of making taxation fall proportionately on all classes ; the other imposed a new tax on cue class only. It will be interesting to many to lay before them some of the arguments u*ed by Colonel Whitmore In his advocacy first of the one, and secondly of the other. In 1873 tho hrm. gentleman tabled bis motion in order to call attention to the fact that any system by which the taxation of the country is solely levied upon land, the bulk of the community, those who can best bear it, will utterly escape. “The classes who benefit by the spending of the borrowed money are not the landowners ” This assertion Colonel Whitmore supported by saying, “ I can well imagine that I may be answered by the statement that land rises in value; but, on the other hand, it must be remembered that land does not really rise in value when the cultivation of it is made less productive by the competition for labor. In the purchase o! land, no one in his senses would lose sight of the fact that the land was subject to tho burdens of the State; and therefore I cannot but imagine that the real value of land would remain at about the same level, or it might be diminished in consequence of taxation. . . . Any system of special

taxation levied solely on land would fall infinitely more severely upon the smaller properties ; and the smaller the properties were, the more would the owners suffer from competition in the labor market.”

Colonel Whitmore in 1873 was in Opposition ; in 1878 he was a Cabinet Minister, and the circumstance seems to have materially altered the case. As a Minister, following the behests of his colleagues, Colonel Whitmore said:—“ When the Public Works policy was introduced, it was promised that any deScit in the railway receipts sh -uld be charged to the adjoining land. No machinery has been created to carry out that provision, but it is still the law of the land, and the justice of such an enactment, in theory, is not open to exception.” The Public Works policy was introduced in 1871, and it is evident that the Colonel forgot that in 1873 he had taken very great exception to the said enactment both in theory and in practice. We should here state that the speeches which wo are quoting from Hansard are too long to give extracts in txtcnso ; we must, therefore, content ourselves with a little bit hero and a little there. Colonel Whitmore then went on to show that instead of suburban lands being enormously increased in value by railways going through them, in many instances the exact contrary had occurred. The railways enabled lands in outlying districts to compete with suburban farms, and dairy produce was no longer the monopoly of districts close to towns. “It follows that the real liability of the land ought to extend to the deficit upon the railway traffic.” Estimating this deficit at £IOO,OOO a year, “there should bo about that sum to be recovered from the land." Further- on, Colonel Whitmore said : is no kind of property which has profited more from the Public Works policy than land. Admitting that all kinds of property have benefited, I will say none have benefited in the same degree as land.” Nobody is in the least likely to di-iputo the fact_ that laud has vastly benefited by the policy initiated by Sir Julius Vogel. If this had not been the case, the policy would have been a miserable failure. The first object of a railway is to place distant places in cheap and speedy communication with centres of population, and when that is achieved those distant lands rise proportionately in value. But land is not the only description of property that has increased in value by the introduction of immigrants, and of the railway and telegraph systems. The Public Works policy was the means of Introducing capitalists to the colony, thereby causing increased competition, and industries to arise. It is manifestly unfair to make land alone cover the deficits in the administration of the policy and allow “sovoreigns” to escape scot free. A general tax on property and incomes would have mot with the approval of both Parliament and people. It Is pot true'that, becau&o tlio Homo would

not listen to a beer tax, and a tax on the profits of joiut stock companies, the Government were prevented from bringing in a just and equitable measure to make every description of property bear its fair share of the burdens of the State.