PARLIAMENTARY.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2919, 3 August 1882, Page 2

PARLIAMENTARY.

LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL. Wellington] Aug] 2-; The Council met et 2.30 p.m, ’ . EIBBT. READINGS. { The Hon. Mr Oliver brought in; Bills entitled the District Railways' Act Amendment, Bill, and the Pharazyn Disabilities Removal Bill, which J were read a first time. , , I BBBLT TO QUESTION. ; In reply to Mr Chamberlain, the Hpi>. Mr Oliver said that the fact that telephone exchanges were being so largely patronised showed that the . charges were not considered too high.. , Mr Chamberlain asked if the Goyer|i. ment would bring in a Bill > ; tb stop juvenile smoking, The flon Mr Whitaker said it was an exceedingly difficult thing to put down these practices ;by legislation, shut if MrChamberlain would bring in alßill to stop smoking, by everybody he; would support it. . : • motions. Oh the motion of Mr Wilson, a’rettirh was ordered of all persons wjho;havo been imprisoned for debt during the last year. Mr Wilson moved that in the opinion of the Council persons who become bankrupt should not be retained on the Commission of the Peace. Mr Reynolds, Oaptaih' Eraser,and Mr McLean supported lihe motion, : the latter saying that as a new Governor was coming a hew Commission should be issued, when the names of all who had been bankrupt could bo left out; The debate was adjourned at the re* quest of the Hon. Mr Whitaker, who promised to make enquiries. SMALL BIRDS NUISANCE BILL/ ‘ ' The Small Birds Nuisance Bill was read a second time, after much oppo* sition, an amendment to throw it out being negatived. Adjournment. The Council rbse at 4.30 p.m.. , |

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

The Hohse met at 2.30 p.m. TBOTXEBS, ETC., COMPANY BILL. Mr Bathgate resumed .the < debate on the consideration of the report of the Committee on the Trustees, Executors and Agency Company Bill (private). He objected to the power given to proposed Company. He moved as an amendment that the report be referred back to the Committee. Mr Weston seconded the amend* men. ■' Mr Levin said he hoped' the amend, ment would be negatived. Mr DeLoutour spoke in favor of the Bill. ... The House divided—Ayes 44; Noes 28. The amendment was lost and the report agreed to. BILLS PASSED. The, Customs Laws Consolidation Bill and the Industrial Schools Bill were read a third timo and passed.

FINANCIAL STATE OF THE COLONY. : On the motion to go into Supply, Mr Montgomery said he wished to make some observations on the financial condition of the country, and to put bis riel’s before the House. It was his wish to examine the finances of the country to the best of his ability, calmly, and without evincing any feeling that he was speaking as a party man. There were some things in the statement of the Colonial Treasurer which he thought required to be spoken of. The public debt of the colony on the 31st March, deducting the accrued sinking fund, was £27,687,000. We started this year with £203,000 to the . ordinary credit. There could be.no /. { doubt the increased revenue of last year was somewhat cheering as showing the increased prosperity of the country. The Customs had increased by £125,000 ■ during the year. Honorable members would not forget that this large increase in the revenue was due very largely to increased taxation. The increased duty, as far as he could make put, that the public had to pay,, was £269,835. The increase in the revenue . was due to the fact that we had very largely increased the taxation upon the Sople. For the current year the easurer proposed that there should be taxation upon the people of £1,900,000. £50.000 should from this, ' v which the Maori population would in all probability pay, so that the taxation we had was £1,850,000 to be contributed by the European colonists of New Zealand. He wished' to show how much that was per head of the population. According to the last census, there were 485,000 Europeans in the colony. If they divided £1,850,000 by the number Jfiif the population they would find the taxation to be £3 9s (?) per head, man, woman,' and child. He considered it a matter of very great importance to ascertain how much each class of the population produced. The Treasurer had divided them into three classes, the property tax class, the intermediate class, and the industrial class. This was a fanciful, division, but he would accept it for the sake of putting before the House his opinion of what each had to pay. When the Treasurer mentioned that the industrial class had to pay 17s 3d per head and the property class £6 per head, he left out of his calculation ~ a very important factor, viz., the duties upon wines, spirits, tobacco and beer, which last year amounted to £744,546. The Colonial Treasurer left that great amount entirely ent of his calculation, and said that these articles could be done without. It was very likely some of them could be done without. , It was quite possible that the property and intermediate class would pay more - in ad valorem duties, but he put it to hon. members, from their knowledge of what they’ had seen, if the working class did not, man for than, consume as much as other classes did. He thought members would agree that they paid a great deal more. He would have to ask hon. gentlemen to form their own opinion, but his opinion was that the working class consumed, man for man, the same amount as the property class did, It was time the property class paid in ways the working class did not. There were the amounts received from stamps, bills of exchange, proinissory notes, and cheques. He did not put down the whole amount of £IB,OOO aa being paid by the consumer, because some of the amounts were no doubt paid by landed property, but he- would put down half that He calculated each class paid.£3 per bead, independent of the property tax altogether, and the properly tax man paid in addition to , that something like £3 or about £6 in • .all. He asked hon. members to consider bow this tax fell upon the people. The tax was not £2 a head in Great Britain, and in Victoria it was not £2, nor in New South Wales. The people of this colony, especially the industrial . class, should awake to the fact that they paid a higher tax than was paid in any other English-speaking country, and when they realised it they should insist upon the taxation being reduced. It was caused by the many millions which have been spent unprofitably and some Of* it fooled away, but that which had been spent, directly benefited property and had raised toe value of lauded property, to the extent of twenty millions. It was a matter for consideration whether the incidence of ' taxation should not be altered so that landed property should bear a fairer proportion of it. It seemed to him a fair matter for consideration whether the £150,000 or thereabouts should not t he paid by those who bonefitted by the expenditure on railways and immigration. Another matter of equal importance was the exceedingly onsound state of the finance of the . eolony. We had theoretically bonrowed money for public works, and if it had been spent Judiciously, jt was a perfectly judicious means of raising money. Bat we had practically borrowed to make np a deficiency in the ordinary revenue. We had borrowed to the extent of £1,800,000—£800,000 in 1877 and £1,000,000 since then. He would point ©nt that no reduction of the debt had been attempted. We ought never to resort to the expedient of borrowing to pay interest for money borrowed. In Spain, Turkey, and such countries, such a thing as this was done, but in England it was not so. If there was a falling off in the revenue, ■he immediately put on an income tax and cleared, off the deficiency. In a year or two there came a depression again, and we borrowed again. We had prosperity at present, and should not continue borrowing, but begin to pay off onr liabilities. Do not let them think that the people outside the colony did not know the state of our finances. They knew it very well We kliew it to our cost. At the present time we had £203,000 to onr credit. The Treasurer proposed to use that all up except £BB,OOO, but the Supplementary Estimates would take that off. What did the colony pay for its money in London ? It got it at 5 per cent, Now South Wales negotiated its loan on the 16th of June very advantageously, but this colony paid 25 per cent more than New South Wales. We rushed into the money market to borrow, and never gave the moneylender an opportunity of getting off the debentures placed in the market. The moment the money-lender allowed ns, we rushed into the market again, taking up a miserable position. We had to go with our hat in our hand. The House was asked to sanction a four million loan, but he would not go into that, because he knew that would be] contrary to the rules of the House, but he would ask hon. members to < consider this, that we were going into that market to ask for money at the very earliest moment we thought the people would give it tons. When hon. members came to consider the Loan Bills, he would ask them if they had considered if this money, when expended, was likely to be remunerative, or would it entail additional taxation. He would ask hon. members to consider whether it k was just to raise money to spend with a ■ view to raising value of landed property ■throughout our country if the interest that money should bo paid by the classes of the country, He ask hon. members to look into matter sufficiently before they large liabilities which must

be a charge upon property or upon the people, and he would ask landed proprietors if they were not laying up for themselves a store of taxation. He would, ask hon. members to consider whether they were not creating a burden for their descendants, or perhaps for themselves. It should be insisted that the taxation should be put upon the shoulders of those men who had received an enormous increase in the value of landed property. The Hon. Mr Johnston said at the present time the railways paid fourfifths of the interest on the cost of construction, and he was sanguine that at the present rate of progress they would soon pay more. The only intelligible portion of the previous speaker s remarks was that the class were too heavily taxed in proportion to the propertied classes. If they compared the colony with what it was when the public works policy was first inaugurated, their prospects now were much sounder than they were at that time. . . , Several members having commented on Mr Montgomery’s speech, the Hon Major Atkinson .said the member for Akaroa was pleased to say there was a great fallacy in the Financial Statement and that fallacy was this, that because he (Major Atkinson) had not obtained sufficient information to give reliable figures, he had excluded _ the question of tobacco, spirits and wines from his calculations. There was no fallacy in that. The hon gentleman said he had left out £700,000. He gave his reasons for not _ including that amount in bis enquiring, but would pnrsne his enquiry a little farther, and next session would be prepared to tell the House definitely the actual position, and then the House would be able to say whether he was correct or the honorable gentleman. If any honorable gentleman would turn to the Financial Statement he would see there the possible limit of the working man’s expenditure in this direction. The total amount left for household necessaries, such as bread, meat, etc,, was £4B. That was taking the average wage at £l3O. If the working man did not get that, how was it possible he could pay the taxation. The member for "Waitaki had submitted to the House a statement of the expenditure of the workingman, a laborer, receiving 36s a week. If that expenditure was true, and he supposed it came from such a source that the member for Akaroa would receive it at once, he would say the total taxation paid by the working men of that class was only 355, that is to say, 7s per head instead of the amount he (Major Atkinson) had put down. But if he had only 2a 4d per week to provide for anything else, he, the speaker, wanted to know how he was to pay the enormous taxation the hon. member for Akaroa said he paid. He himself said it was impossible for him to pay the taxation, but the member for Akaroa said ho did so. Even taking the average rate at £l3O a year, it was a physical impossibility. Mr Duncan—lt is the single man who pays the taxation. The Hon. Major Atkinson said it was trne, the single man did pay a more taxation. In the case of a single man who spent an inordinate amount on tobacco and spirits, it was a very reasonable taxation to put upon him if he spent his money in that way instead of saving it, that argument failed.