Untitled

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2833, 14 March 1878, Page 2

Ouh contemporary challenges discussion re the justice or otherwise of the gold duty. He denies that it is an unjust imposition. To attempt argument with a writer who can only regard such an impost as the gold duty from a purely local point of, view, would be useless. The most that he can say of the gold duty is that it is a source of revenue to the County: it is not contended by many that it is just, but expedient. Our contemporary does not say why it is just, but merely asks what would the County do without it P How would the authorities make roads if deprived of this source of revenue ? Our legislators who have to deal with this question will scarcely regard the local circumstances of a district. They have to consider whether it is a wise policy to tax an industry that has done bo much to advance the material prosperity of the Colony as goldmining has. The exceptional circumstances of a district like the Thames cannot be accepted as an excuse for perpetuating a tax which is admittedly a hardship pressing severely upou thousands of working miners; and if our contemporary returns to the subject, perhaps he will let us know how he can justify the tax as fair and equitable in its bearing upon the miners of the Middle Island; We are aware that the sudden -deprivation of the sum now accruing to the County from gold duty would be a serious matter, but there are other sources of revenue than it; and if the legislature abolish the gold duty they may confer the power upon local bodies of taxing mining property in the usual way, which would partly make up for the loss of the gold duly. The question of abolition or continuance, however, is one which will be decided upon colonial, not on local grounds; and the cry of the County's impecuniosity will not influence the decision one jot or tittle.