The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. THURSDAY, JULY 5, 1888.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2494, 5 July 1888, Page 2

The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE.

THURSDAY, JULY 5, 1888.

Equal and exact justicc to all men, _ Of whatsoever state or persuasion, religious or political.

It is said that history repeats itself. A verification of the aphorism is furnished in the political history of the Colonial Treasurer. If our readers will cast their memories back to the year 1879, and compare the state of iitVuirs then with the present, this statement will make itself clear to their minds. On the defeat of the Grey administration, with its outrageous career of extra vangance and mismanagement, its successors, the Hall Government, found themselves confronted with fixtraordinary difficulties. Major Atkinson, the Colonial Treasurer, obtained then an unpleasant legacy in the shape of a huge deficit amounting in round numbers to close on i 1,000,000. There was no possibility i'f cm-uring this large sum by ditvct" tuition ; it was, therefore, funiled Kiel added to the permanent debt of the colony. With

the fall of the Stout-Vogel Ministry, ;i mild reproduction of the former Grey Government, Major Atkinson again came into power last year, and again had to face a serious deficiency. The colony was more than half a million to the bad, and, as in 1879, the permanent debt his been reluctantly increased by the sum of £400,000 of the deficiency, which has been funded. In 1870 the same Colonial Treasurer took severe measures to increase the revenue by additional taxation. The Customs duties were increased to the extent of £300,000, the Stamp duties were raised, the Beer j duty was invented, and, last but not least, the Property Tax was instituted. Fresh taxation, amounting in the aggregate to more than half a million was added to the burdens of the people. What has been the result? Has the country recovered itself, or been benefited by the uncompromising policy of the Colonial Treasurer 1 We think we have shown very conclusively in our previous articles that the converse is the painful fact of the case. Our public indebtedness has swelled from £'27,000,000 to £38,000,000, absorbing for interest alone £1,858,000 of our annual revenue. Trade and commerce has retrograded, the Customs receipts, which in 1880 were £1,258,114, amounted in 1887 to only £1,280,585, or, virtually, have remained stationary, and not progressed with the colony. Again does Sir Harry Atkinson resort to his one expedient, taxation. The Customs duties are once more raised enormously in order to provide £207,000 additional revenue, whilst the unfunded balance of the deficiency of last year, i 128,000, is to be extinguished by the imposition of a new method of obtaining money, a primage duty on all imports for two years. He has, also, perpetuated the old policy of borrowing, by inflicting the weight of another loan of £2,000,000, contracting, as some one very aptly remarked, fresh debts in order to pay old debts. In 1579 Major Atkinson, or rather the Hall Government, met the demand for retrenchment by imposing a 10 per cent, reduction on all salaries and dispensing with certain officers in the Civil Service. Tlie Ministry, however, was too timid to deal comprehensively with the departments, which had not only overgrown the actual requirements of the people, buthad acquired apotential influence by far too dangerous to the position of the Government of the day. In 1880, with all the reductions that had been made, the total administrative expenditure was £1,910,80/, but in 1887, whilst our revenue in the meanwhile had shrunk and depression grown deeper over the land, the cost of government had increased to £2,144,054. We may here observe that in this interval our system of education had also increased by £100,000.

Sir Harry Atkinson again conies on the Kctmi, and the demand for retrenchment, now grown into a mighty " roar" with no signs of abatement, conies to him from the country. The people turn from his sole panacea —taxation. They can hear no more of it. Though the colony may have been lulled into quietudes for the past nine years, the lessons that period has brought with it can no longer be ignored. It is not retrenchment only that is needed, which, whilst it may curtail the cost, does not remove the incubuslike nature of the Civil Service: it is not taxation, which, regarded as most impolitic by many, will not restrain our population from leaving us ; neither in the hour of the country's predicament, are Protection or Freetrade abstractions the remedies we seek. The eyes of the whole country and of our legislatorsshouldbeopened wide by the experiences of the past few years which h'J'e proved the utter failure of the fiscal policy and taxation measures of the Atkinson ian Code. Whilst most of our sister colonies in Australia have been making amazing progress in every element of national prosperity, irrespectiveof Protection orFreetrade, New Zealand is alone falling back more and more, her magnificent natural gifts being unavailing. We have urged often before, and will still continue to preach the same gospel, that nothing but a thoroughly radical reform in our entire administrative machinery can put our country in a sound condition such as will place her in 'Jic forefront of antipodean nations. The people must again exercise, or regain, a direct control over the expenditure of their own money ; the Legislature must be simplified ; and economy in every direction of the public service, with extensive improvements in the system ef local government, unalloyed with the evils of centralism, should form the watch-cry for the future.