South Canterbury Times, MONDAY, JANUARY 17, 1881.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2443, 17 January 1881, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, MONDAY, JANUARY 17, 1881.

A general election is approaching. Another session and the people once more will be masters of the situation, holding the destinies of the country in their hands. In the immediate past they have had bitter experiences, but the lesson will be only advantageous should the electors emerge brightened and refreshed, if not unscathed, from the severe political curriculum to which they have been subjected. Taxation is a capital scourge when applied judiciously. During the last twelve months it has been applied freely, if not judiciously. The listlcssncss and apathy of which we heard so many complaints no longer exist. Major Atkinson’s latest whip—the property tax—has made an impression on the tranquility that reigned during the happy years of borrowing, spending, and squandering. Adversity is a capital monitor, and the people of New Zealand are perhaps all the better for being brought face to face

with the practical' rudiments of a sound political education. They have entered on the alphabet of taxation, but their lessons are by no means exhausted. A course more severe than anything yet introduced to their notice has to be faced. It is no use indulging in idle dreams. The foreign bondholder is at the door, and the colony must meet its obligations. At any sacrifice the public credit will have to bo sustained. The taxation that has been applied is but a foretaste of the pleasures to come. The colony is in the throes of a financial crisis, pregnant with important consequences. Something like £140,000 has to bo contributed by the taxpayers monthly towards the interest on our magnificent debt. This is a drain on the colonial revenue that puts Taranaki and Dr Pollen’s pension quite in the shade. Hitherto we have been unabled to put off the evil day, by paying the British lender in bis own coin. John Bull, however, has buttoned up his pockets and closed bis universal loan office against New Zealand. The colony is consequently thrown upon its own resources. Not only is it debarred from contracting further debts but it is called upon to meet its obligations. The problem is a difficult one, but it must be faced and resolved.

It will be perceived that the question of questions for the electors to deal with is that of taxation. On this momentous issue depends our progress as a young nation, our commercial health, our social wellbeing. Will the knowledge that the lash which the electors will be invited to manufacture is to bo applied to their own backs, lead to the exercise of a greater degree of prudence than was displayed at the last general election ? They have had a taste of Major Atkinson’s whip —aie they satisfied ? If so they will adhere to the property tax, and sound the praises of its administrator. No doubt the property tax has its virtues. It leaves the shipping and several other powerful interests alone, and it is eminently designed to foster the absentee proprietor and colonial landocrat. Nothing could be better designed to discourage improvements in town and country. It touches the soil but lightly, but it makes the crops and fences, and homesteads pay sweetly. It prevents the manufacturer growing wealthy too rapidly, and it puts a wholesome check on anything like splendour or even comfort. In a word it is a tax on civilisation—a premium to savagely. Major Atkinson should be proud of it, if the colony as a whole is not grateful. The rod. he has applied to the artisan, the manufacturer, the merchant, and the working farmer has had an awakening effect, and who knows but that the Major with all his fondness for Taranaki, Tc Whiti, and the Armed Constabulary—with all his reckless denunciation of colonial finances—may yet be esteemed a benefactor. Public opinion, thanks to electoral reform, can at last assert itself in a way that was formerly impossible. Every colonist who has attained the age of manhood can vote, and it is his duty, if he desires to be of service to his countrymen —if he wishes to be something more than a cypher or nonentity—to see that he is enrolled. The country is on the eve of a critical ordeal. The electors as a body have suffered for their apathy and criminal negligence in the immediate past, but unless they are prepared to act with decision and firmness at the forthcoming general election, their sufferings will be small compared to the tortures that under the name of taxation will yet be inflicted. If, when their would-be representatives come before them, with oily tongues and seductive promises, they are prepared to handle the reins with their own fingers, some good may be done, and the burden of taxation may be shifted on to the right shoulders. Something like finality is demanded if the country is to prosper. For years, the incidence of taxation has been wavering, oscillating, staggering. Trade and commerce have been unsettled, capital has been driven from the colony, and labor has followed in its footsteps, because of the wide-spread feeling of insecurity thus induced. If industry is to thrive the weight must be taken from its shoulders, and following a grand, law of nature, taxation, like wale - , must be allowed to gravitate. The apple, watched by the inquisitive philosopher fell to the earth, and so taxation, we submit, however it may be turned, twisted, and tortured out of shape, must eventually fall back on the soil. The soil is the fountain of all wealth, and in spite of strategem the State must rely upon it for its revenue. To fight the industries of a colony by taxing property or applied capital, is simply trying to make

water run up a hill—exhausting energy and gaining nothing. In this colony the land has been improved by public works, and as a simple matter of justice it must contribute. The soil is a source of ever-yielding wealth, and it can afford to bear the burden. £140,000 per month is a large sum, but scattered over the area of improved and unimproved estates it is but a moderate infliction. To the farmer as well ns the manufacturer a fair and equitable land tax is far preferable to a tax on property, because it signifies the utilisation of estates now held for purely speculative purposes, the promotion of settlement, the improvement of our export trade, and 4 the establishment of a commonwealth on a fair and equitable basis. It is desirable that before the coming electoral campaign this question should be 'wought out in all its bearings. It is after all but a phase of the same land question that has been agitating the Australian colonies, stirring Ireland to the quick, revolutionising Germany, and which constitutes the great element in the republican and democratic struggles on American soil. The battle is. a universal one, the issue is inevitable. Political economists of the more advanced school, unite in asserting that a land tax, established on a fair and equitable basis, is the best of all guarantees for a peasant proprietary, and the establishment of a peasant proprietary is the aspiration of every well regulated and enlightened settlement.