The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 1882. PROPERTY TAX.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 4, Issue 1076, 17 May 1882, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 1882. PROPERTY TAX.

■ : We always Lad a prejudice against the Property Tax and disliked it almost as much as its predecessor, the, Land Tax. Of course it was a great assistance to New Zealand™ turning the corner two years ago, but'we believe that we should have come through our difficulties without it, and now we are absolutely clear of danger, it would be quite practicable to wipe it out altogether, The Government can get along without it, ; this is indisputable, but then it may be said that without this revenue the Government could not give subsidies to local bodies. To this may be rejoined "that if we have to pay the money out of our pockets from which subsidies spring we might as well hand it over to our own local treasurer, and control its expenditure instead of sending it into Wellington, where a portion of it necessarily vanishes in the maintenance of a well manned Property Tax Department." The cardinal point in putting local selfgovernment in a satisfactory position in our opinion, is to separate its finance entirely from that of the General Government. As long as it depends upon parliamentary,, grants and ministerial favors for its ways and means, it is only a bastard kind of local selfgovernment, The area of taxation for the support of the general administration requires to be limited. Ministries''

Should be told that they must! make both ends meet out of their Okoms and Stamp duties and leave a little poking:for-,local bodies.. OountrV settlers would, wo .feel auve, willingly pay heavier local rates for the' construction and repairs of roads if tbey were relieved of the Property Tax, They would.far sooner pay a Copty or a Eoad Board collector whom they-know than the representative of a department which fines them 10 per cent if they are' twenty-four hours in arrear with their payments.. There is a little too much Cmram in Now Zealand, and in ho depavfcmont isthia more felt than in the one which we desire to see abolished. We fear country settlers throughout the colony are not alive to the fact that they could, by a united effort, extinguish it. They have got used to it, and though, even now, hundreds of settlers are being sued for their arrears, they lmvo ceased .to kick against it. They regard it as an inevitable misfortune, when it is within their power to rid themselves of it. We tail to see any satisfactory assurance' ot the local self-government question coming to anissue this session unless the Property Tax be wiped off the atalule Book of the colony. If a soparation of local and general finances were once made, the Property Tax would not bo required for the purposes, of the latter, ami would be' unsuitable as an aid to the former,