South Canterbury Times, MONDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2421, 20 December 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, MONDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1880.

Tun prosperity of New Zealand is at present hanging in the balance. An adventitious move may push the colony rapidly ahead ; a false step may throw it back forjycars. As the existing Parliament can only last for another session and a general election is approaching, it is advisable that such of the people of New Zealand as intend to make it their homo should carefully study the problems that they will be called upon to solve. They will shortly have the balance in their hands, and the prosperity or adversity of themselves and their families will depend on the action they take. Questions of political economy of a momentous character have to be decided ; financial problems of a complicated nature must be worked out. The colony may be aptly compared to a beast of burden —a draught horse for instance. What between its national debt, its limited population, and its undeveloped fields, it has a. heavy load and an up-hill journey. Radiy fitting harness has covered it with ■ sores, and new harness has become a necessity. Nearly everything depends on the way in which the new harness is made and adjusted. If it is a good fit the load may be pulled with tolerable case and certainty, but if it is a bad fit the progress will be slow and accompanied with much suffering.

The chief item in this load is the interest on our debt. For this alone, on and after January 1, 1881, the sum of £130,000 will have to be sent out of the colony every month. This is an appalling drain upon a colon} 7 with only half a million of inhabitants all told. Hitherto we have had little or no trouble in meeting the demands of the British bondholder because we had paid him back in. his own coin. But if loans are to cease, additional taxation will become a necessity. How is the country to bear the strain ? What shall be the taxation of the future ?

There is no disguising the fact that the present system of taxation will have to be revised. Major Atkinson’s harness is worn out and a new set has become a necessity. No picture that the Major can paint—and he is a cunning artistwill get rid of the fact that his financial proposals have been almost uniformly gigantic blunders. - The colony, we presume, has had enough of the Major’s financing. It has suffered from his pictures with their exaggerated tints. His dark, dismal shades and deplorable forebodings, have sacrificed our credit abroad and done mischief incalculable. Besides lowering the value of New Zealand securities, it has discouraged the influx of capital and population at the very time when the farmers of Great Britain are navigating to other lands. As an offset to his mischievous nightlike picture, he will be prepared, when Parliament again assembles, to present a very brilliant sketch of what has been accomplished. The effects of retrenchment, and the improvement in the revenue* which a combination of natural causes has produced, will all be pictorially paraded through the slides of his magic lantern. The Major will shew that he has brought order out of chaos—wrought a grand transformation scene—like Professor Baldwin turned the ink into water—and he will labor hard to prove that there has been no deception—no conjuring. He will not claim credit for the economy of others ! Oh, no ! And he will make a particular point of telling the parliament and the country all about the expenditure on the Maori scarecrow in Taranaki. Nor will he forget, when ho alludes to the splendid returns from the Waimate plains land sales, to mention the amount they hare cost the country, or the proportion that has been appropriated for bogus harbors for his constituents. It will be interesting to know, out of the gross returns of his property tax, how much has been spent in collecting it? Has the game been worth the candle ? Are the nett proceeds a fair equivalent for the injury done by discouraging the investment of capital, reducing the value of property, and putting a stop to improvements ? When the Major presents his gorgeously illuminated picture in vivid contrast to his last dismal masterpiece, perhaps he will give us some information on these subjects.

The Atkinson harness is worn out. The- incidence of taxation must be changed, and it is desirable that any new system introduced should be established on a permanent basis. The taxation of New Zealand has been something like the shifting sands of her rivers. This must all be altered. As long as taxation is in a transitory state

property is insecure, and the' building up of a young nation is partially suspended. Capital may be invested in purely speculative concerns, such as insurance, banking and other joint stock companies, but there will he very little investment in building manufactures and works which are essential to the growth of a true national life. To give confidence and security 7 to the owners of property there must be something like finality 7 . The colony 7 knows the exflet extent of its load ; it knows for what it must provide, and the time has come when taxation should be settled upon a permanent footing. Experiment must give way’ to fixed principles.

The property tax is doomed. Nothing can save it. Itsanthors have nauseated the country sufficiently, and in the fair hope of postponing the evil day for themselves they’ will throw the accursed thing over. A more insane method of rasing revenue —a more injurious tax was never introduced. Its death will be like that of a repugnant and unnatural deformity, a relief to its parents. But although it passes away’ unregretted, something must take its place. Shall the colony revert to a land tax, an income tax. a house tax, or some other form of taxation ? Shall the New South Wales system be tried, and a tax imposed on exports such as coal, wool, and grain ; or will the Victorian plan of raising revenue by a land tax and protective duties be attempted ? Customs duties have already been pushed to an extreme. They’ may bo reduced or modified, but they’ cannot be increased with the slightest prospect of improving the revenue. The existing tariff offers an inducement to smuggling and discourages consumption. That it has diminished comfort and interfered with trade and commerce is beyond question. The question then is—what new code of taxation will be introduced ? But little will or can be done next session beyond preparing for the end. The Government and their opponents will be too busy preparing new and inviting programmes with which to dazzle the electors to bestow much attention on new legislation. It is now for the electors to consider what side they will take. Taxation of a severe nature is unavoidable, but of evils they’ can choose the least. Possibly’the forthcoming Intercolonial Conference in Sydney will shed some light on the vexed Customs tariff question. An endeavor will, we trust, be made to assimilate the various tariffs of the colonics as much as possible, and New Zealand will be standing directly in her own light if she does not give such a movement her heartiest support. In the meantime, pending the ensuing general election, the electors all over the colony will do well to earnestly weigh for themselves the merits of the different schemes of taxation that will be brought before them, so that the decision may bo tolerably unanimous, and that if an unpopular and injurious measure like the property tax should be introduced, their representatives will not be able to turn round and say—“ Well, gentlemen, yon may whip the cat now that you feel it, but you must remember that you voted for the infliction when you returned ns, and you cannot now upbraid us for giving effect to your error of judgment.” This is a pitiful excuse we admit for a representative who does wrong, but it is a pica that has been frequently urged of late, and the electors will in future act wisely if, by exercising a little of their own judgment and refusing to be led by’ the nose, they put it out of the power of any member to say that they acquiesced in the introduction of a vicious, fallacious, and detrimental system of taxation.