NOTES.
The National Association for Promoting State-directed Colonisation is still to the fore. On the fouth of February a deputation of the members, including Cardinal Manning, the Bishop of Bedford and Lord Brabazon, waited on Lord Salisbury. In reply'the Premier, according to the Daily News, told his visitors some plain if unpalatable truths. " I quite concur." he said in a sentence which, however rhetorically admirable, is open to the charge of being slightly vague, "in the opinions of Cardinal Manning and other speakers that there is no remedy for this distress, always terrible, but varying so much in the amount and severity of its incidence—there is no rorredy which offers anything like the same prospect of an early and complete cure, at least to a vast portion of the people, as the remedy of inducing those to go out to a colony who here are starving, struggling with incessant disappointment in their efforts to maintain themselves by honest labour, and placing them where they can cull from the fertile earth produce which in clue time will be exchanged for the products and stimulate the industry of our manufactures at home." That is very eloquent, and the passage has all the soothing properties of the ble3S3d word Mesopotamia. But Lord Salisbury is well aware that the people whose emigration is most desirable are by no means those whose presence is moat welcome to our colonial fellow-sub-jects. The Government cannot of course assist emigration without incurriny: serious responsibility, and would be justly reproached if it helped to transport men and women who could find no employment at the. end of their journey. The recentlyestablished Emigration Bureau has for its principal object'the supply of. authorised and accurate .statistics as to the needs of the different colonies. But "direction," says Lord Salisbury, " is the one thimj that an English "Government cannot give." A colony may refuse to receive State-aided emigrants, and then, Lord Salisbury seems to imply, the State which aided them will find itself in an awkward position. This is just the sort of danger against which the Emigration Bureau is designed to guard.
Mr Robert Peat, the well-known saddler, of Hamilton, lias brought under our notice what appears to lie a very hard case. About the end of January last, Mr Isaac Bates, saddler, of Cambridge, entered an action against Mr Peat for an infringement of his patent rights in a certain girth, and assessed the domages at £100. It seems that MiBates took out his patent in June last, whereas Mr Peat has been making the same description of girth for many years past. Indeed, Mr Peat informs us that all the saddlers in the country have been manufacturing them. Prom whatever cause, probably because he had not a leg to stand upon. Mr Bates has now seen fit to withdraw the action, and Mr Peat is informed through his solicitor that his attendance at the Supreme Court will not be required. This is all very well, and amounts to an admission that Mr Peat has a perfect right 'to make and sell the particular kind of girth (we believe Mr Bates calls it the "Cambridge girth") but he has nevertheless to stand the racket of the expense, and has had to to bear the burden of a good (leal of anxiety and trouble. If people will rush into legal actions before they are curtain of their ground, then all we can say is that they ought to pay for the amusement. It is bad enough to be worried without having to "stump-up" for the privilege.
It is the fashion at Home (remarks a contemporary), to talk about the heavy aud rapidly-increasing taxation of New Zealand, and much capital is made of this alleged increase by those who wish to deter emigrants from making New Zealand their destination, And yet the statement is true in only one sense, and that not the one most important. That the aggregate amount of taxation has increased is undeniable. The revenue raised by taxation amounted to £1,551,022 in ISSI, and to £1.999,000 in 1882, and to £2.050,054 in ISS3, but decreased to £1,869,495 in 1884. There was therefore an increase for the first three of those years. But this is not the basis on which a fair comparison would be made. The true question is : What is the amount per head of population ? Here we can glean interesting and instructive information from the official statistics. It appears that although there was a substantial increase in the aggregate amount obtained by taxation, the yield per head remained almost 3tntionary. It was £3 16s 3d in ISBI, £3 18s 6d in ISS2, £3 18s 7d in ISI3, while in ISB4 it fell to £3 7s Sd. In ISSS there was a small increase to £3 14s 2d, but even this is much below the results of ISB2 and ISS3. Clearly, then, it is inaccurate to assert, as some of our English critics do, that the taxation of New Zealand psr head of population is increasing with giant strides. On the contrary, it was less in ISBS than in 1881, owing to the steady increase of the population, which enables the burdens to be more equitably shared and more easily borne. The larger our population the less onerous will be our burdens.
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Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2298, 2 April 1887, Page 2
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884NOTES. Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2298, 2 April 1887, Page 2
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