THE PROPERTY TAX.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 360, 17 April 1889, Page 6

THE PROPERTY TAX.

Auckland, April 8. Speaking with regaid to the propel Ly tax in the course of his address at the Thames on Monday night, Mr Cadman, M.H. R. for Coromandel, said he was strongly in favour of a land and income tax, as lie felt convinced that it would be found less objectionable than the property tax. lie illustrated the iniquitous nature of the piopertj tax by iustancing the case of a block of land containing 7.600 acres at Moehau, the title to which had been completed and Government had purchased it for £3,486. It contained 12 licensed holding*, and the combined property tax was a mere trifle. But for some reason or other the Kapanga — an Eng ish Company at Coromandel — which ovwied 30 acies of land that had cost Government £15, had to pay something most exorbi tant. During the last 14 years the English capitalists interested in this Company had expended £125,000 in developing the property, and taken out gold woith £23,000, leaving them £102,000 to the bad. The mine and plant was nob worth £5,000 — no one would care to give that for it, — but, to be above the mark, ray its value was £10,000. That was the whole inleiesb that the shareholders in the Kapanga Co., had in New Zealand. Yet what was the result? The property tax valuer had sent a notice to the manager that he had assessed the Company at £106,000. The result was that the manager had come to him (Mi Cadman) about the matter in a great state, and said that when the assessment went Flome the directors would most likely wind-up the Company. He (the speaker) had written a letter to the Property Tax Commissioner regarding the matter, ard asked him to show it to the Premier, but had icceived rather a facetious reply, being to the effect that the assessmei-t had been made on the marketable value ot the shares of the Company in Lo' don on the Ist of October, There were 185, 00 U shares in the Company. If this was an examp'e of how outside capitalists were to bo encouraged and assisted, he certainly thought the ground would long continue to be undeveloped. The manager of the Company had placed the matter in the hands of Mr Hesketh, and it was most likely that it would be fought out, but such a tax as thi* could not fail to do the colony incalculable harm and keep capitalists from our shores. In his opinion the legitimate expenditure of outside capital should be encouraged, and he would be in favour of giving foreign companies an exemption from taxation for 5 or 6 \ears if they were prepared to spend as much money as the Kapanga Comnany had done in Coromandel.