THE BAD TIMES AND TAXATION.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2213, 14 September 1886, Page 2

THE BAD TIMES AND TAXATION.

Oitr Te Awamutu correspondent wptes : — There can be no doubt that a great deal of the destitution ofjthe unemployed can be tracod to their own fault. When times were good and wages high they never exhibited any forethought, with the inevitable result — destitution when employment ceased. At one of the meetings of the unemployed, discussing the gutrifields, one man said he had made a pound a day. If that statement was true there was no reason why the man should be hard up. Appreciation of gold is haul to be laigoly responsible for the prevailing depression. It may be so, but a great deal of it is caused in New Zealand by the badly managed borrowing policy of the successive Governments. Everything went on well while the money lasted, but now that the colony is being drained of a million and a half for interest every year, the fatal results are being felt, and if the new loan of a million and a half is floated, we shall be saddled with an additional sixty thousand for interest. Not only that, but while the proposed works are in course of construction interest will be paid out of capital, so that we shall be paying that interest for a considerably less sum than the amount of the loan. I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, that, taking our population into consideration, we owe more than any country on the face of the earth. £.56 per head is a respectable debt to owe. When Mr Fronde was here he was taken round and shown all sorts of public works completed or in course of construction, and the various bodies proudly asked him what he thought of the progress made by such a youthful colony. All these were made with borrowed money, and when the great historian commented on our recklessness and folly in trying to be a quarter of a century ahearl of our time, he was anathe utatised because he told some unpleasant truths abont us. We are a quarter of a century ahead of our time ; we don't want the North Island Trunk Railway, nor do we want many other equally useless lines which are made and being made. It would pay the colony to give a substantial compensation to the various contractors and stop the works. It would entail a great deal ot hardship if borrowing were suddenly stopped, for that would mean stoppage of all public works, but the money could be better employed than in building useless lines and buying inferior land from the Maoris. Sooner or later we must stop our borrowing, and the sooner we make a start and begin to reduce, the better it will be. The laud we already possess is not half settled. When that is done it will be time rnough to open up fresh country at the public expense. Let the Go\ernment offer substantial inducements to men of moderate capital to immigrate instead of f lightening them away by increasing our already too heavy load of debt. Money is wasted in Wellington on an overgrown civil service, patent lifts for Sir Julius Vogel, (the country has already given him a good lift, which is not patented, and is open to every adventurer, since he came, in the shape of a high salary), furniture for ministerial residences, the Stark purchase and a thousand and one other ways Some of this money would be more wisely spent in offering substantial rewards for the discovery of goldfields. It is not likely that men would give infer mation of such a discovery for a paltr) five hundred pounds, more especially if it had to be divided among two or three. Four times that amount would be a more suitable reward, ami would Bettlc the question of the existence or non existence of gold in other places than those already worked. We have a fine CDiintry, splendid climate, good natural resources, for there is plenty of undeveloped mineral wealth, and on the whole a good soil, but the burden of taxation presses heavily on us, and the life blood of the colony is b"in^ drawn from it in paying interest on a gigantic debt, for which we have little to show. Here is an instance ot how the public money is wasted. A certain surveyor with his stalF \\a> engaged doing some work in a district lie was eighteen months engaged on it, and had not finished. A piivate sui ve\<>i said he would do the whol^ ot it for t'.'JJO, find all bis ow n men, and then make n handsome piotit. It cost the country about £990 to half do what could be completed for one third of that sum. It the borrowing I'olomal Tieasuier would only transfer his affections to some other country it would be a public bles&iny to us. He might also take Mr Maxwell with him."