The Wairarapa Daily. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1881.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 3, Issue 880, 22 September 1881, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1881.

The Property Assessment Act of 1879 has had to he patched up lock, stoek.and barrel in 1881. Wo never favored a property tax, but when the country had been brought to submit to its operation, and the penny in the pound was being paid wich a certain amount of readiness, it was foolish of Major Atkinson to reduce it to a halfpenny. Taxes, as well as subsidies, are usually raised and lowered suddenly and abruptly. A fall of fifty per cent, in the property tax or a reduction of fifty or seventy per cent, in sudsidies are familiar illustrations of this. We cannot look upon these sudden transitions as good government. It would be wiser to reduce the property tax a farthing at a time, and it would have been more prudent to make the reductions in subsidies n gradual process. Local bodies should not be jumped from 20s in tho £ in one year to 10s in the £ in the next, and from 10s to nothing in a succeeding year. We have before us the Property Tax Amendment Act of the present session, which has virtually passed the Lower House with little debate, A number of its clauses are merely vernal improvements to cover small legal fl-'ws that have been detected in working the Act, The seventh .clause provides for statements of property to he made on: the Ist October. The statement is to be j the full cash value of the property at. the time when it is made. ]f a person makes an unsatisfactory statement of »ny asset which ho may possess, the Commissioner may assess the value himself, and if the person will not accept che Commissioner's statement of value, that lofficer may take' over the asset by paying the person 10 per cent, advance on his own valuation. Op the other hand, if a person is assessed l above his own valuation, he can compel the Commissioner to reduce the assessment or make the Government pnrchase the property at the Commissioner's valuation. This is a radical and it is a wonder that it should not have been challenged by a single M.H.R. when it passed the Lower House. However, ton members, after straining at gnats for so long, may be expected to swallow camels at the close of the session, TJie neiv method of valuation is an American expedient, and is said to answer well in the United States. There everyhody is supposed to be tolerably smart and wide-awake, and it will be necessary for the officers of the Property Tax Department, as well as the taxpayers, to be astute as Yankees in working the new regulations. '

The Dike op Oambkiikhj speaking at a.recenl hiii'i|Htft mi 'ho Vnlui.teer movement, said :—"Atid if faults had not tan hjiiit.'-tly, fearlessly, mid frankly stated, yi'ii Dover would hiiva arrived at ilie position which you now occupy (cheers), Praise bestowed improperly is the worst gift that could bo bestowed ; while praise, iiiven at the proper time, when something approaching perfection has been attained, is valuable and useful, and I h"])B will always bo considered acceptable Improper praise would have had the etfoct of makins; Volunteers think they had attained perfection when they were n»tns pel feet as the more iutelHgout amongst them (tli»u«h they might not like to acknowledge") wished themselves to he, or as the authorities wished to see them.. But what has been the result of not <?iviii<r undue praise, and of bringing to the notice if the Volunteers anything in their conduct tha'. was unsoldierliko I Why, wo saw the other day at Windsor a force of 53,000, from every part of the country, collected under circumstances of difficulty—l do not say real difficultyhut still under circumstances that called for »reitt .nruaniaalinii and great preparation ; and yet they were brought together with a simplicity and ease which have really astonished even those who anticipated that the whole proceeding would end satisfactorily." In Now Zealand faults have not been honestly, fearlessly, and frankly stated. Praise has been improperly bestowed, and tlia result has been the marked inefficiency of the New Zealand Volunteers, as contrasted with the Home Volunteers. New Zealand Volunteering is a Rham, and English Volunteering is a reality,