South Canterbury Times, TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2236, 18 May 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, TUESDAY, MAY 18, 1880.

Post-sessional addresses are the order of the day. Three members addressed their constituents on Monday evening— Mr Reid, of Hokitika ; Mr McCanghan, of Riverton; and Mr Barron, the Member for Caversham. All of them denounced the financial policy of the Government, and condemned in the strongest terms the Property Tax, and all of them received votes of confidence. The feeling of three meetings held in centres of moderate importance, and widely apart, may safely ho accepted as a tolerably good indication of the opinion of the colony. Unless the Government are foolhardy they will hardly venture to entirely ignore these indications. From the commencement, we submitted that their financial proposals were suicidal —suicidal to the political life of the party in power and suicidal to the best interests of the colony. The system of taxation introduced bore, a singular resemblance to the famous Abolition Act. It was designed to {mil down and destroy, not to repair-or build up. At a time when the colony was suffering from monetary depression and wanted nourishment, the Government went in for blood-sucking. The sudden and injudicious increase of Customs duties has tended to produce discomfort and discontentment by augmenting the cost of living, reducing the purchasing power of the laboring classes, and prostrating trade. As a means of repairing the revenue, it has failed completely, for in proportion ns consumption has declined the revenue has fallen off. The property tax has driven, and is still driving capital out of the colony, its effect on commerce has been prostrating, and on young industries particularly its influence has been ruinous. Instead of endeavoring to strengthen and develope the resources of the colony, hy the application of sound economic legislation, the Government has fallen into the error of withdrawing for revenue purposes capital that would otherwise be employed in the presentation of mercantile, mining, or agricultural enterprise.

The relative position of the Govern* nient and the people oi New Zealand at this moment is peculiar. We might almost say it is unnatural and anomalous* A system of taxation has been introduced, which an overwhelming majority of the taxpayers helievo to be oppressive, unjust, and iniquitous. It is not the amount of taxation to which exception is taken. Nobody denies that the financial exigencies of the Colonial Treasurer are great, or that the revenue of the colony must bo improved. It is the method adopted for raising the revenue to the required standard that is objectionable. In taxing the common necessaries of life, and in applying the axe to the root of enterprise by introducing a property tax, the Government and their supporters at the end of the last session deliberately and flagrantly violated the privileges of responsible Government. So far as the opinion of the county had been tested, it was proved to be emphatically hostile to a property-tax. An income tax might have been tolerated because the state of the colonial finances demanded a resort to direct taxation, but a property tax was so obviously unfair, impolitic and unjust, that the men who subsequently voted for it, either evaded the subject altogether when before their constituents or obtained their seats by false pretences. As an instance in point, wo may mention the Member for Coleridge, Mr Wright, a clear-headed, capable, and in every other respect reputable Member, but who obtained his seat by distinctly pledging himself to oppose the Property Tax, which his opponent, Mr George Hurt, suggested. There arc others who voted for this excessively objectionable tax who acted a similar part, obtaining their seats virtually by false pretences, and who despite their good business qualities, having flagrantly betrayed their constituents, have clearly disentitled themselves to public confidence in the future.

Will the Ministry persist in ignoring the voice of the country ? With regard to this Property Tax, from one extremity of the colony to the other, there has been heard but one chorus of declamation. Is the Government resolved on disregarding the voice of the people ? If so, we venture to sny that their fate is inevitable. The people of New Zealand is not a community of serfs, and to trillc with their resolute will is madness. The property tax is now thoroughly understood. It is so oppressive, so demoralising, so antagonistic to modern ideas of what is reasonable and equitable, that the more it is studied the more visible do its defects become. It is regarded, not as a cure for the financial ailments of the colony so much, as an instrument of torture, wherewith the land tax is to be revenged. Unfortunately for its originators, the rod has developed into a two-edged sword, cutting more ways than one, and many who were content to pay the land tax with a grudge are beginning to perceive that in advocating a property tux they have been been cutting off their noses to spite their other features. Wo venture to say that every step that the Government takes in connection with this iniquitous impost is a step nearer their doom—a doom in which every member that voted for this abhorrent system of taxation deserves to share—political annihilation.

It is quite unnecessary to human greatness, that its projects should be invariably successful. While genius is halting and stumbling and struggling desperately on the way to fame, the fraud, the humbug, and impostor hy a series of daring leaps, reach the pinnacle. The world is full of quacks, who attain greatness by their magnificent failures. Mock mermaids, deformed children, and plaster of Paris petrifactions of giants, made the fame and fortune of the American Barnum, just as bitter aloes made the fame of Profes.sor Holloway. Most countries produce their showmen —ambitious individuals, who having taken to the stump for a living, soar aloft to the regions of the pecuniarily blessed on the popular shoulders. New Zealand is no exception to the rule. On the contrary we have been specially favored by a cruel providence. What if our Brummagem demi-god luxuriates in England, he is the product and the pensioner of this grateful colony. But for our Agent-General we would be in the position of America without her. Barnum, or England without her Holloway. To whom is New Zealand indebted for her present greatness ? Sir Julius Vogel. To whose ingenuity does she owe her splended national debt ami present financial complications ? Sir Julius Vogel. Through whose diligent puffing and unscrupulous exaggerations has the colonial labor market been glutted? Sir Julius Vogel’s. There have lately been suggestions that this celebrated professor of the art of puffing should be dismissed from the public service. We suppose no such step will be taken. The loss of such services as those which Sir Julius has rendered the the colony would be irreparable. It is the good fortune of this colony to have in its Agent-General one of the greatest aeronauts that the world has ever witnessed. No artist in the balloon line has floated so many worthless.? schemes.. True, most of them have hurst, like soap hubbies, but what of that? They have looked well to the eye while they lloatcd, and they have answered the purpose of the New Zealand Barnum. In Victoria, on the goldfields, the name of Sir Julius lives immortalised amidst the wreck of many a mining balloon. The New Zealand ’’immigration balloon lias just collapsed. Another splendid balloon has been floated in Great Britain, bearing the name of Vogel on one side and the New Zealand Agricultural Company on the other. How long it will live it would be premature to guess, hut, judging from what took place at the general meeting of shareholders in March last, the ballast is fast disappearing. Of course Sir Julius Vogel gave it one of his leviathan puffs upwards, and he brought to his assistance one of the vendors, who dilated on the magnificent climate of the Waimca plains in Southland and their capacity for vine culture. “ Recollect,” said Sir Julius, “wo have “ a continuous block of splendid land “ of immense extent, possessing rare “ qualifications,and amply supplied with “ railways. It is our business to convert “ this unpeopled territory into a pr osi! perous combination of towns, villages, “ farms, gardens, and residences. Every “ new settler gives additional value to “ the land unsold. So much is this the “ case that, in all probability, the last “ 20,000 acres wc retain will bring us more than all wo have previously “ sold. Young men and families with “ adequate knowledge,and the possession “ of a capital varying from a few hun- “ dred to a few thousand pounds, may “ look with confidence to finding “ on our estates present support and “ future competence.” This was surely enough to make the shareholders cock their cars and open wide their mouths. These innocents had contributed to the vendors £120,000, and they were gratified with receiving no less than a half-crown dividend on each £7 10s they had contributed. A magnificent dividend of course. But then they were comforted by the assurance that future calls would be rendered light, as it was intended to issue debentures on a first mortgage upon the land. We do not know whether these shareholders are to be congratulated on their prospects. It is evident enough they are only entering into one of these labrynths of financial difficulties which seem to be so congenial to the daring and inventive genius of the great aeronaut. Whether it is well that the Agent-General of New Zealand, and tie president of what may yet turn out to he a gigantic land bubble, should he combined in one and the same individual. is a question that the legislature would do well,to consider.