THE Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 1892. TAXATION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2372, 21 June 1892, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, JUNE 21, 1892. TAXATION.

Three or four weeks ago Mr William Oldfield sold his farm in Kerrytown to Mr John Fitzgerald, and went up to the North Island where he purchased land in the vicinity of Marton, the chief town in the County of Rangitikei. Short as the time has been Mr Oldfield has already put himself in evidence there. He was always terribly conservative in his ideas on politics, and in the Rangitikei Advocate to hand we find a letter signed by him in which he animadverts in rather strong language on the Land and Income Tax. His letter is rather too long to give in full, but the substance of it will suffice. The burden of his letter is that the farmer is unfairly taxed. He says, “It has been said on many occasions that a man was entitled to tucker before taxation, but under this law, as soon as a man buys a farm he is liable to a tax on its ytdue. They do not wait for him to grow a crop or get any return, but tax him right away, and while a man in any other trade is allowed a dear £3OO a year, the farmer is not allowed a penny.” The weakness of this is that it Is not true : in fact there is not a syllable of truth in it. No doubt, however, Mr Oldfield believes what he says, because this is exactly the rubbish which Tory papers and orators have been preaching all along. Let us see how true it is. It is anticipated that incomes to the amount of £3OO will be exempt from taxation, but tfie farmer will also get an exemption of £-*>oo, well as all his stock and improvements. Let us suppose for instance that Mr Oldfield carried £IOOO to the North Island with him, and he invested £750 of it in a well improved farm, and £250 in stock, implements, horses, &c. Let us still suppose there is £230 worth of improvements on the farm, he escapes taxation for that. Tims he has £IOOO worth of property, and he is not called upon to pay any tax at all. hirst, lie gets 500 .Gx.crppt.ion; second, his improvements £250 < apd stock £250 escape the tax, so he pays no tm-c at all. Under the Property Tax he would have paid £3 is Bd, but under the Land and Income Tax he will have to pay nothing, yet Mr Oldfield weeps oyer the repeal of the former impost. The man with the income gets an exemption of £3OO a year, the man of the land gets an exemption of £SOO, and £3OOO for iipproyements, together with all the stock, implements, horses, and cattle he may have, and thus both are placed on equal terms for both get a certain amount of exempt, Tims “ Tucker before taxation,” as Mr Oldfield puts it, is provided for both, and neither has a right to complain. This is the sort of gibberish the Conservatives have been preaching, and it is by this they delude men like Mr Oldfield. We always gave him credit for more sense than to allow himself to be deluded by palpable falsehood, and we should recommend him to study his subject well before rushing into print again, because it is not well for him to begin life in his new home by giving the people the impression that he does not know what he is talking about. Some very hard tilings may be said of men who put their mimes to plain falsehoods ; some people may think they know better and that would only make matters worse, for one may forgive innocent ignorance, but not a preconcerted falsification of facts. We hope Mr Oldfield will not be accepted as a fair specimen of South Canterbury farmers so far as politics is concerned, for indeed very few are so Conservative as he is,