POLITICAL NOSTRUMS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 2870, 4 December 1890, Page 2

POLITICAL NOSTRUMS.

QUACKERIES AND CATCHPENNY POLITICS. ;k a Southern exchange of a recent date ippears the report of a speech by one ot Vow Zealand's rising politicians and the .renchant way in which he deals with some if the leading topics of tho day will make .he following extracts we feel sure, be .horoughly enjoyed by our readers. On .he subject of riioTiionoN, be said the people living ill towns who advocated the policy of Protection have discovered two things—lirst, that Protection means taxation. They have discovered this by experience—tho best of all teachers. The Treasurer wanted money ; he wanted Mimo £300,000. The Opposition wanted Protection, and the Treasurer gave them the two things together, the two ingredients—taxation and protection — compounded into oue dose. The Protectionists were delightod.—(Laughter.) So was the Treasurer.— -(Laughter.)— Well, now. when the Treasurer gets money it can only come from one source—namely, the pockets of the people. They have found out that Protection is not a cure for depression. Experience has taught them that too. They've got the Protection, aud they haven't got tho prosperity. (Laughter.) The tariff was going to work wondors. It had given them a boom in Victoria, they say, why shouldn't it do tho same here. The boom has gone out of Victoria, but their tariff has not. CATCUPENNY POLITICS. That is to say, oolitics intended to catch the ear of the unthinking elector and catch his vote at the same time. Well, then, first of all, there is the eternal land and income tax. Now that we've got a property tax, the Opposition waut a lond and inCume tax. If we got a land and income tax to-morrow, the same people would never cease demanding a property tax. Now, just think of it a minute. Everyono admits that under a laud and income tax we would requiro the same amount of money we get under the property tax, otherwise there would bo a serious deficiency iu the rovenue. Tho same amount uf money would come out of the pockets of tho people, and pretty much the same people, too. What in the name of sense, therefore, is the object of the change V And they talk, ton, as if the change was going to work wonders for the colony. Only give tia a land aud income tax, and everything, you would think, would bo right. Can you conceive any greater nonsense ? STATE OWNKHSHU' OV LAND.

Nationalisation, people call it. It sounds well —(Laughter). We are to sell no more land, whether on deferred payment or in any other way, and the State is to buy up all we've already sold, and then evorythmg will ba right. You'll notice that the demands for loasing come from tho towns. That is to say that where people know least about the land they are most confident howit ought to bo settled.—(Laughter). I say that the cry comes from the towns, aud when I see it come from the country, where people understand the working of land I'll begin to believe there may be something in it.—(Applause). Cf course you know tho true theory of the matter. The reason we sell land is because the experience ol ages has shown us that when people own land they take more pride in it, put more labour into it, more money on it, aud lake, more out of it. Production is what is wanted, and we get more production by selling than by leasing. It is better for the individual and better for the State. —(Applause). .There is something positively ludicrous iu the fact that while one section of the people is clamouring for State ownership, the State itself, with the fullest approval of the people, is quietly selling the land, and in fact gets _ itself roundly denounced for not selling it fast enough. Stop selling in every form, and just see what a rebellion vou would raiso iu tho country. Now then for another quackery, in the shape of the AHSENTKE TAX. That is a very popular tax now, isn't it? You observe they all want it, It would work wonders, you would think. So it does at election time—(laughter)—but you never hear of it, or of any of the other nostrums, after the election is over. (Renu.ved laughter). I'm not an absentee, Nobody counccted with me is one, so that, exoept for the country's sake, I don't care a straw whether you tax them or whether yon don't. My own opinion is, that a man who, after living iu a fine, breezy, healthy country like this, goes to dwell somewhere else, is a fool. (Laughter). But you can't tax people because they are fools. If you could, what a glorious revenue we would have. (Laughter). A good fow pounds, let me tell you, would come out of * * ' * (renewed laughter) from those on the other side in this contost, I mean ; (Great laughter). Well, now, the objection to tho absentee tax—that is a poll tax on persons who have property here but after making money go to live somewhere else, for, of course, their property is taxed like any other—is that the money it would produco is as nothing to the mischief tho name of it would do the colony. You will admit wu want people to come out bore, to bring moiißV with them, so that they can invent, employ labour, and set things going a bit. Fancy us sending an agent Home to induce people to come out ! Ha explains what a tino country it is, and what good Investments can bo made. And then, if he is an ivinest man, has got to add —" But, mark you, if you do go out to New Zealand you'll have to stick there, for they'll fine you so much a year if you go and live anywhore else." (Laughter). Would people pare to come out hero ?