PROPERTY TAX.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 382, 6 July 1889, Page 4

PROPERTY TAX.

The " Times " this morning discusses the property tax and capital, wherein it is asserted that no proof has yet been given of a property tax keeping capital out of the colony, and that there were always other reasons behind it. It endeavours to show how income and a land tax, to produce the present revenue by the property tax, would have to be put on at a veiy heavy rate* Then it says it is the very essence of the land and income tax scheme that the only property it should touch is to bo incomeproducing property, that is to say actual investments. After pointing out that it is these that make capital, the leader says plainly that if the present tax deters investment, so a jor lion would the proposed lax. There would be a perpetual doubt as to what might come next, a feeling of perpetual insecurity. That it is which alarms and repels capital. Then the article says, "When we add to this indisputable fact that the land tax tends to discourage settlement, and presses hardest on the genuine producers who are the backbone of the country, and that the income tax would be detestable in its inevitably inquisitorial character, the list of drawbacks is complete, which it would be very hard indeed to get over. The truth is, that the agitation againstthe property taxis based upon utterly wrong premises, upon a total misconcep-

tion of the fiscal problem to be solved, and of its essential conditions." PARLIAMENTARY RIFLE MATCH. The Hon. J. W. Castine, of the South Australian Legislative Assembly, is endeavouring to arrange a Parliamentary Rifle Match botween local legislators and representatives from the other colonies, seven a side, Martini rifles, seven shots, one sight at four, five, and six hundred yards. Mr Fergus is going to call a meeting of local men to arrange matters.