ANTI-NEW ZEALANDERS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 231, 4 November 1909, Page 4

ANTI-NEW ZEALANDERS

illi. T. K. MACDO.NALD'S EXI'EKI- j EXCES. •' Speaking in the Legislative Council during a recent debate, Hon. T. K. JlaciJonald said:— Possibly the most generous thing in my coming back to Xew Zealand was this; to linii nothing but prosperity all ilie way from Perth to Adelaide, '.Melbourne to Sydney; to hear nothing but happy and bright prospects for the future of Australia, Mic people hearty and glad, and on the contrary to find" that certain Xew Zealand settlers hail been visiting Sydney and been giving the most horribly doleful accounts of Xew Zealand, that some, two millions of money were going out of New Zealand because they could not make a living Here. All sorts of horrible and deplorable things were said. I replied to one of them: You have made your fortune in New Zealand, which has done some stupid things amongst a great number of valuable things; you have bad prosperity as a settler; 'why should you go away and belittle the country, and sneer at New Zealand because its taxation does not suit you? Du you think that lair to n country that does not deserve one tithe of what you say* ,Are you now displaying a want of patriotism and fairness after all (he good things that have been bestowed upon you by that land, which lias been a very good intid to you? f say it deliberately that it is a great mistake for any man to leave Xew Zealand and to visit another coirjIry without holding the Hag of Xew Zealand mi high. Pcrstfimlly, 1 never lose an opportunity t.o be, as far as I ■in. an ambassador for Xew Zealand, ami ill all respects de, it ju-'tice. ll sav this now. that when f returned to Wellington ami he-ird the rash and foolish fears expressed as to (he future, thai I look the (.rouble to look into the starstics to see if there was any justification for the statements, ami I was amazed to discover that with all the talk against it by certain foolish people, X'ew Zealand' was' holding its own with regard lo its finances and productive power. I found tliat the direct taxation—tand and income tax and death duties—has only increased, per annum, for each taxpayer, in lifteen years, bv, what do you think?—.ll. All of these gentlemen who are howling, who have made hundreds of thousands of pounds through the increase in land values, their taxation in fifteen years bad risen CI- per bead, fn PUIS the capital value of the land of the Dominion was 14S millions, in 11M1S the private wealth of the Dominion was ■"illS millions. The inereas'e in the annual incomes in lifteen years was over 10 millions. And yet this is the country regarding which, from one end of Australia to the other, I was fold had gone utterly to the dogs, was not worth living in, and that people were elearin" lout as fist as they could.