South Canterbury Times. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1881.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2653, 21 September 1881, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1881.

Owß of the most astonishing results of the session of Pafliament now drawing to a close is that to which form is given by the Bill read asecondand third time in the House of Representatives yesterday, reducing the property tax from a penny in the pound to a halfpenny for the half year ending with the current month, and to a farthing for the succeeding half year. This step is worthy of the Hall Government, a Government bound band and foot to the large landed interest, and bound by their tenure of office to preserve and if possible improve the position of the large land owners. The Bill was brought forward only at the very last moment, even after members had begun to depart from the scene of political strife, and when. anything like a fair consideration of it was impossible. It yet, we are pleased to observe, met with a determinedly expressed opposition from a few, and several members unsparingly blamed the Government for bringing the Bill down at so late a period of the session. It is true that the Treasurer intimated in his Financial Statement that Government would ask that the tax be diminished by one-half—-from a penny to a half-penny in the pound—for the second half of the year ; but no measure being brought down until within the last few days to give that intimation a practical shape, no discussion of the intention was allowed to take place. The property tax was ostensibly put forward as a just extension of the land tax of the previous Government, because the Treasurer was “ unable to sea upon what principle

of justice or expediency it is held that land , 'is the only; form of property that should be taxed,’’ and the change of name and slight extension of incidence are being made use of by the Government party to relieve to a great extent the large landowners of the only tax which effectually reaches them. For the property tax is essentially a land tax, notwithstanding its name, and that it falls upon all kinds of property. We do not know precisely the proportionate value of each kind of property—land and other —as assessed in the colony, but when proposing the property tax Major Atkinson pointed out that the total valuation under the Land Tax Act was £99,500,000, and he estimated the value of other property, after deducting £5,000,000 on account of £3OO exemptions, at £13,700,000. The total capital value of all kinds of property, as assessed under the Property Assessment Act is £73,958,182, some twenty-five and a-half millions less than the value previously assigned to the land only. Supposing the Treasurer’s estimate of the value of other property than land to have been at all near the mark, it is clear that the greater proportion of the property tax is payable upon property in land. Among the Tables attached to the Financial Statement delivered in July last is a series showing how the property assessed for the purposes of the the property tax is distributed among owners. From one portion of this series, a “ Return of Freeholders, Classified according to Area, showing Total Value of their interests as assessed under the Property Assessment Act,” may be extracted the fact that 1624 persons hold rural lands, in areas of 1000 acres and upwards, of a total value of £27,393,807, or upwards of one-third of the whole assessed value of private property in the colony, the rest, somewhat less than twothirds, being distributed among 59,034 owners of smaller holdings. From another table can be gathered the fact that quite half the total amount of property tax collected was paid in sums of £SO and upwards by only 819 persons , and much more than one-fourth of it in sums of £2OO and upwards by 145 persons. The reason why the Government propose a general reduction in the property tax while leaving other taxes untouched, except for a little tinkering at the Customs duties, is manifest at once when the full significance of the above figures is seen, it being kept in mind the while that the Hall Government is kept in power by a party representing the large landed interests. In the course of his recent Statement the Treasurer said, referring to the property tax, “ now that its provisions are generally understood, it is admitted throughout the colony that the tax is thoroughly fair in principle, and that it has generally worked satisfactorily.” If the tax is “ thoroughly fair in principle,” why make a reduction in its amount, while other taxes, of which such an assertion could be made but hesitatingly, are not at all interfered with ? The answer is easily found. We do not endorse the opinion of the Colonial Treasurer that the property tax is admitted throughout the colony to be thoroughly fair in principle ; but so long as it is the only tax which reaches with any effect the large landowners, those who are benefiting so immensely by the advance of the colony, due to the exertions of others, we say that it is the last tax in which any general reduction should be made. Leaving out of consideration just now the wisdom of reducing taxation at all at present, if a reduction was to be made there were plenty of directions in which it could be made so as to relieve the great body of taxpayers more equally than in this. As a matter of fact the relief will scarcely reach the body of taxpayers, but it will reach, and to some purpose, the large landholders, and that, there is too much reason to suppose, is what is intended. The only thing that reconciled the people to the property tax was the fact that the land tax was merged into it, and formed the principal part of it; whether they will continue to be satisfied with it now that the land is to escape so lightly is scarcely problematical. It is certain they will not. Numerous faults have been found with the incidence of the property tax: it falls too heavily on industries requiring costly buildings and plant for their prosecution; it hampers the small agriculturist and tends to prevent improvements being made to the extent they should and otherwise would be. It is in the direction of rectifying such defects, by increasing the list of exemptions, that a first reduction in the tax should be made, if made at all. But this would not at all answer the purpose of the party who individually will be immense gainers by a general reduction ; because the amount of capital they have invested in property of that kind is comparatively very trifling. There is another direction, which may be mentioned, which, whatever may be thought of it by others, should have been suggested for a reduction of taxation by the Treasurer before the property tax was generally reduced. When, in June 1880, making his Statement for that year he found it necessary to propose additional taxation, he confessedly had to choose between “ least objectionable ” modes of increase, the result being that, “ with great regret,” he proposed the beer tax. Now, however, when a reduction is considered possible and advisable somewhere, it is to be made, not in a tax which a year ago could only be characterised as less objectionable than another, and which was proposed “with regret, but in one which the Treasurer says the colony from one end to the other admits to be “ thoroughly fair in principle.” So much for his consistency. It is not to be wondered at that a Bill which is to benefit so largely a small class has been kept in the background

till the last moment, and that, as charged by Mr Moss yesterday, it is attempted to be got through,by subterfuge, and by taking advantage of the physical and intellectual weariness of those who see its drift and desire to oppose it. At an earlier period of the session it would, we firmly believe, have been impossible to get the Bill passed, and the manner in which the Government and their supporters are giving away the tax which bad been so hard fought for will be remembered against them at the day of reckoning.