THE Wairarapa Mercury. SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 1867. TAXATION.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 14, 6 April 1867, Page 2

THE Wairarapa Mercury. SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 1867. TAXATION.

What will Government do when Parliament meets ? What do the Opposition propose doing ? There is less said, and still less known relative to those subjects now than there was when the last session of the General Assembly was prorogued. The professed object of Mr. Stafford when leading the Opposition was to reduce expenditure within current income, with this cry he went to the election, and to support the principle which this cry was supposed to represent the majority of the present Parliament were elected. How he an 1 they fulfilled expectations in this respect, how both practically repudiated the virtual pledges which they made to the Colony and their constituents, the new Tariff and the Stamp Duties Act show. The present Parliament does not represent the people, inasmuch as the measures which it was specially elected to carry out have been abandoned, and others of a totally opposite character enacted in their stead. Yet Parliament professes a holy horror of the very word, “ repudiation,” when it relates to engagements made by it to the English moneylender, though it can repudiate without hesitation or remorse the solemn engagements which it virtually made with the Colonial tax-payer whose interests, it is absurdly assumed, it specially represents. The existing Parliament ought to be known as the “Repudiating Parliament,” and a Government having its confidence is not to be trusted. The Opposition, whatever it may do, or propose doing, ought to go in for a dissolution. The majority of the present Parliament obtained their seats under false pretences, and have been guilty in doing so of a worse misdemeanor than that which frequently before now has consigned better men to the treadmill. But it was not of Parliament we proposed to speak, but of the taxation which is now depressing trade and commerce, preventing colonization, and, in fact, ruining the country. We have said we know less now of what Parliament intends doing when it meets, than we did when it was prorogued, the voices which about that time tickled the ears of the public in ex-par-liamentary utterances, and afforded some information as to what had been done, or it was proposed to do, having since either been discreetly hushed, or only discreetly raised when there was no reporter present. In order therefore to discover what Parliament would do we have had to refer to our files in which those ex-parliamentary utterances were duly registered, and we there find out not what Parliament would in the next session do with reference to the subject at the head of this article, but what it did in the last session relative to it, and the alleged reasons for doing it. The fullest and best information on the subject is given in the speech of Mr. John Hall, to his Canterbury constituents, and as we had not an opportunity at the time of referring to it we shall be excused for now doing so, particularly as it contains some truths which are but seldom met with in Ministerial speeches, and never referred to in the columns of the Ministerial press. The present Postmaster-General is reported to have said that after meeting the liabilities of the General Government

and paying the contribution from the Customs revenue to the Provincial vernments which they had been in theft habit for the last six years ot receiving, the Government discovered that, without a reduction of expenditure, there would be a deficiency of £50,000. But this discovery had been made previous to the present Ministry taking office, it had been made previous to the time Mr. Stafford became Premier, it had been made before the dissolution of the former Parliament, and to reduce the excess of expenditure over receipts was one of the principal objects the country had in view in accepting him as its Prime Minister. Now what did the Government do of which Mr. Stafford is the chief ? Did it attempt to reduce the expenditure ? It did nothing of the sort. What the Government did is plainly expressed by Mr. Hall. “The Government, he observed, “ said at once the deficiency must be raised by additional taxation,” and Parliamentunhesitatingly assented to the proposition. It could not raise the amount required by increasing the Customs duties so it had recourse to Stamp duties instead. “It was,” said Mr. Hall, “ impossible to get more revenue out of the tariff, because the customs duties were already too high, higher in fact than in any of the neighbouring colonies of Australia,' and especially as regards the necessaries of life. Even if it had been fair to increase the customs duties it would have been inexpedient to do so. They had already driven many people into smuggling. In one part of the colony, where the population had certainly not decreased, and where the consumption of tobacco had as certainly not fallen off, the import duty on that article had diminished in such a way as to prove the existence of smuggling to a serious extent. In another part of the colony the police had discovered no fewer than twenty-two illicit stills since the Ist of January last, and it was believed that many more might be discovered.” These facts proved that the customs duties could not be increased, or that would have been the means which Parliament would have adopted to have equalized the difference between the revenue and the expenditure. It would not impose a property or an income tax. It would not retrench. It would not sell the confiscated land. It would not ask the Imperial Parliament to compensate the Colony for the loss it had sustained by Downing-street breach of faith. But it would have imposed additional duties on articles of general consumption if that had been possible. The only other course open was the imposition of stamp duties, and stamp duties were according imposed, A property and income tax would have made the owners of property contribute in proportion to the stake they had in the country, and the advantages they received from good government. It would have relieved commerce, trade, and industry from the burdens now pressing upon them, and the public would have contributed to the burdens of the state according to their means, andnotaccording to the amount of their consumption of duty-paying commodities. A property and income tax was therefore not to be thought of; additional custom’s duties would have been the thing, but these were too high already. The Government bent upon increasing its income and not diminishing its expenditure, had consequently, as wehave said, no other recourse but the Stamp Act. This will bring double the revenue it was expected to do, but the Government, unless press and people speak out, will not reduce the customs’ duties for all that. It would prefer repealing the Stamp Act. The public will not take a real interest in public questions until a system of direct taxation is imposed. I'hey will then find out where the shoe pinches. We hail, consequently,the imposition of stamp duties as a step in the right direction. In the meantime we direct the public attention to the following remarks of the Postmaster-General. It is seldom we have seen so much truth conveyed in so brief a compass; it is seldom indeed we hear such an acknowledgement as this coming from the lips of a member of the Government. “In England,” says Mr. Hall, “the owners of property were made to contribute in various ways to the Government of the country; but in New Zealand taxes had hitherto been levied on the consumers of the articles taxed, and property had not only not borne its fair share in the maintenance of the State, but had escaped taxation altogether.”