The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1882. THE BONUS SYSTEM.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1003, 12 September 1882, Page 2

The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1882. THE BONUS SYSTEM.

At tin* last meeting of tho Industrial Association of Christchurch, a rcsolutiun was carried to the effect that Government should bo asked to adopt the bonus system with rcgaid to the linseed industry. They propose (hat £2f)o should be given for the first 100 ton« of twine, ami £IUOO for tho first 2000 gallons of linseed oil manufactured in the colony. When will the people of Christchurch learn to depend on their own exertions to develope industries ? A few months ago they made a great deal of fuss about a line of railway to the West Coast, and got professional men to survey the line, but a couple of their old identities went over it after the surveyors, and said it would not pay a company to construct it. Con-

trast this with action of the people of Wellington, who floated a company to construct a railway through the most mountainous part of New Zealand, and made very little fuss about it. There is a pitiable absence of self-reliance in the actions of the citizens of Christchurch in both these matters. If the railway to the West Coast would not pay a.company ,- it would not pay (he Government, and the Government would have much loss right t© enter into it under such circumstances than a private company. But. the people of tins colony have got into the habit of having everything done for thorn by Government, and this has destroyed their self-reliance and spirit of enterprise. They aie like spoilt children, and it will take years to eradicate this feeling of total dependance on the Government out of their minds. What can be more humiliating than to find a body of commercial men asking the Government for a bonus to dovelopo an industry which has all the elements of success in itself. There is no hope for such men. No enterprise will succeed whilej they have auj' connection with it, and if these .are the men who are at the head of the Christchurch Fibre Company, our proposed local company need have no fear of opposition from them. Now it has been freipiei tly shown that this linseed industry is one of the best paying undertakings that anyone could enter into. The demand for binding twine is yearly increasing, in fact there is scarcely any limit to it, and so far as we can judge from the representations made at the meetings held here and elsewhere it can he profitably produced and much cheaper than the imported article. The demand for oil is also enormous, and the enterprise would undoubtedly pay. Why then should the Government be called -.pon to give bonuses to these industries ? The bonus sys-. tern will never develop industries, it is not the proper way to encourage them at all. What the Government ought to do instead of offering bribes to the enterprising is to remove the shackles they have put upon them in the shape of taxation. Let them take off the taxation on the machinery and the capital employed in the development of the industrial resources of the colony, and put it either on the foreign productions brought into competition with our own industries, or on uncultivated agricultural lands. This would be something substantial and lasting, something suggestive of sound political economy. To tax machinery ana capital employed in developing the resources of the colony is to clog the wheels of progress. How any assembly of sensible men can do so is beyond comprehension. But they have done it, and offered bonuses too for the production of certain articles, and what is more they appear deter uined to continue it. All we can say is that they cannot retard progress more effectually than by taxing the springs of industry, and that in a few years, when the children who are now growing up will bo able to work, there will be no work for them, and they will have to leave the country. In ten years’ time there will be thousands of young men and young women ill this colony who will have to work for their living, and unless industries are started there will be no work for them. The bonus system in which the venerable females of Christchurch have such faitu will never devclopc industries. They must grow up and live independent of any outsile assistance, and the way they can do that is to place the taxation they now hear ou their competitors in the markets.

BELLAMY'S. Tubuk was a slight breeze 1 in Parliament over the prssing of the Supplementary Estimates. An item of £133 towards defraying the expenses of Bellamy's gave very virtuous members an opportunity to moralise on the wickedness ot this world. Bellamy's is a sort ©f a bauquettiug hall, restaurant. Cate do Pans, or something else in the refreshment line, where droughty memb rs slake their thhM after putting in a good word fur the Colony in her Legislative jHall, and only members can i'rajuoiu it. Any oilier atom of humanity dot irons of wetting his whistle dare not approach this sacred shrine, but must wait in some one of tho outer rooms until a waiter takes it to him. The item of £133 for the .support of this institution was for broken glasses, and cutlery,and so on, and Mr Shepherd very pertinently remarked that if in their hilarity members broke glasses the Colony should not bo. expected to pay for them. Captain McKenzie, whose' name betrays bis nationality, on comp'aining that the living was not as good