THE PROPERTY TAX.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2255, 9 June 1880, Page 2

THE PROPERTY TAX.

Some rather telling arguments against the property tax were brought up by the speakers at the recent meeting held in Dunedin. Mr Robert Stout, the mover of the resolution which was carried, demanding tho repeal of the tax, and Mr Robert Gillies, the seconder of the resolution, made excellent speeches. Mr Stout is reported to have said : We are told that if we attempt to oppose this property tax we are playing into thejhands of the speculators and big landowners. Is it not, then, a most extraordinary thing that speculators and big land owners shonld prefer this to the land tax? It must be either that they do not know their own interest, or that they have become suddenly generous. I will take an example of two men who have, say, 200 acres each. They get the land at the same time, and both live upon it. One is a man who understands farming, who is active and industrious; every spare moment is devoted to the improvement of his farm, which is well managed and cultivated. His neighbour has been thriftless, has done nothing to improve his farm. What does the property tax say? It says to one, You have improved your farm, you have spent all your time on it, you understand farming, have spent your money on the land, and the result "is that, as your farm is so improved, you must pay a tax upon its improvements, while your thriftless neighbor shall only pay about one-b alf the amount of taxation. Then ta’tce another case for example. A man has invested money in the purchase of: 200 acres of land ; he has not chosen to do anything to it, but allows it to lie idle until other farms have been improved, roads made, and its value increased, and then he intends to sell it. From this man the Government only require a third or a fourth of the amount of taxati on which is obtained from the neighboring property, I say that.is what takes place so far as tho tax affects the agricultural interests of the , colony. In concluding Mr Stout mentioned that the’property tax system, in America had been condemned by one of the Supreme Court judges there, from a calm judicial point of view, and that the system was condemned by the leading writers on political economy at home. ,

Mr.Eobert Gillies delivered a speech which was forcible, terse, and to the point. From the report of his remarks which were frequently applauded, we select two passages as a fair specimen of the whole. Mr Gillies said: —We find that the whole machinery of this Act—the Property Tax Act—when it is carefully unveiled, is simply to enable the large landed proprietors to get the sinews of war and pounce upon the fair acres of Now Zealand and hold them in monopoly at the expense of their fellow colonists—(Applause.) I hold in my hand a return of the various loan companies which do business in jNew Zealand. It would be tedious to you to read over the long array of figures connected with it, but I may say that according to the property tax there will be something like £9,000,000 or £10,000,000 of money which will escape taxation which ought to bo taxed. There is not one item to compel the banks to disclose what deposits they have got in their coffers, and if a man likes , to put his '.money in on a deposit receipt, there is no legal power in New Zealand to compel him to disclose it. Is that right? —(Cries of

“ No.”) Is that fair ? Are we to be called upon to pa}- —is everybody to be called upon to pay when there are men who have dozens of millions escaping here, there, and every where ?