THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. FRIDAY, MAY 14, 1875.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 1984, 14 May 1875, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. FRIDAY, MAY 14, 1875.

The debate on the address ia reply to His Honor the Superintendent's opening speech was resumed in the Council on "Wednesdayby Mr Carletbn, and when the Council adjourned at six o'clock the debate was still unfinished. Mr Cairleton criticised the speech clause by clause, but directed his attention chiefly to the paragraph ia which Sir George Grey referred to the tax per head of popuation. In noticing this Mr Carleton drew attention to one circumstance which must have escaped the notice of Sir George Grey in penning his speech, namely, that the contribution of the native population to the general revenue was altogether overlooked. Sir George a

statement was as follows :—" The inhabitants of the province are stated in the last Census as being 67,450 souls, excluding natives. This gives a taxation of about £4, 12s Od a head on every man, woman, and child composing the European population, which means that each small farmer or laborer who has a wife and four children contributes about £27 12s from taxation., each year to the revenues of tho colony." The revenue was set down at £309,086 Os lid, made up chiefly of Customs Bcvenue, to which thenative population.are large contributors. How the Superintendent came to overlook this fact we cannot tell, because it materially alters the state of the case, and -reducesi the taxation-per head as stated. 1 A great deal more has been made of this point in Sir George Grey's address than it deserved. It was at best but a catch cry, and has "been iterated times out of number by New Zealand politicians when attempting to prove that this is the most heavily taxed colony or country under the sun. But coming from Sir George Grey the statement appears to have been invested with a new importance. Mr Carlton did not, in support of his objections to the speech and to this particular item, rely solely on the one ground of the ■native population's contribution to the revenue being ignored, but mentioned several others. This was, however, the principal argument to prove that His Honor's assumption was fallacious; and he was followed by other members whose utterances are suggestive of the speakers having taken their cue from Mr Carleton. The debate, however, did not make much progress. While there are in the Council men who are quite prepared to approve of every word Sir George Grey had uttered, some hon. members display more than ordinary cautiouscess, and are careful to analyze before endorsing. The land purchase system now being carried out in the Province was condemned in unmeasured terms by Messrs Carleton, Lundon and Buckland, the latter stating that if all he had heard was true, proceedings of a dis« graceful and scandalous: nature had been permitted, and he had intended to ask for an enquiry. In this direction, therefore, Sir George Grey is likely to have every assistance in exposing one of the great evils under which he conceives the Province io be laboring. If the first two days' debating are to be taken as an index of the Council's disposition for work, the session' will be more lengthy than was anticipated, especially if hon. members' should feel it incumbent upon them to go into the abolition proposals at length, which is very likely to be the case with a-Couneil so divided on the question at the present, and with gentlemen of such extreme views as Mr Hees and others. The public will expect to see a little work and less talk, especially when they remember the serious inroad which the honorarium of members will make on the beggarly revenues of the Province if the session be unnecessarily .prolonged.

[Telegraphic items to-day briefly inform us that the debate has closed, the address in. reply movedybyiMr Rees having been passed unanimously.] ,