LEGISLATIVE COUNCILLORS ON THE PROPERTY TAX.

Auckland Star, Volume XX, Issue 290, 6 December 1889, Page 2

LEGISLATIVE COUNCILLORS ON THE PROPERTY TAX.

On September 14th bhe Properby Tax Bill was brought forward for ite second reading in the Legislative Council, and the short debate which then took place affords another valuable political lesson to be derived from "Hansard." Tho Hon. Mr Miller, who commencod the debate, said he did nob oiler any objection to tho Bill, but he thought thab in the face of the jubilant expression of bhe Governmenb ab their having succeeded in keeping the public expenditure within our income, the Government might also havo held out some hopes of a reduction of the terriblo taxation of the country. He alluded in the course of his speech several times to this tax being a direct tax, and that the severity of this particular tax lay at the root of most of tho evils under which we suffer, the unemployed for insbance and the number of people who are leaving tho colony. He said, " The price of our produce is very much higher than it was, and there is a very good prospect in tho future for our settlors ; and yet in spite of all that, persons are leaving tbe colony. I cannob help thinking that our taxation has a greab deal to do with ib." Mr Miller was undoubtedly righb in the goneral view he took of the question, but it doe 3 not seem to havo occurred to him that his conclusions Were somewhat illogical, for if the property tax is a direct tax upon property, the comparatively speaking small amount I'oalUcd by it could hardly be responsible for the universal depression of which ho complained. Had ho searched a little farther he would have discovered that it was to the general incidence of all our taxation, pressing as it does so severely upon tho results of labour, that the trouble was really duo. Tnen followed the Hon. Mr E. C. J. Stoven., v gentleman who at one time was looked upon as a great financial light and a budding treasurer, in consequence of his making a long aud remarkably able speech on tho finances of the colony some years ago. As he never made another, however, he at length became known as Mr Single Speech Stevens. However, on tho occasion of the debate we are noticing, ho was very great on tho properby tax question. Ho started off with the profoand dictum, " Of course we are all agreed with the principle that direct taxation should, if possible, bo reduced." No doubt, if the "we " here applies to the members of our Legislative Council, MrStovens is right. He might also have added, "Ibof courseis, and always has been, bhe policy of the rich men of this country to co collect the national revenue indirectly from the ignorant masses thab bhey should nob know when they paid taxes, or how much they paid. If we acted in a contrary" manner and adopted the principles advobated by those old fossils —Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, etc, —who have laid down that taxes, to be fair, should be levied upon each member of a community in proportion to the wealth derived by him from the country in whi h ho lived, and that every man should know to a penny how much he paid and when he paid it, the people would soon get their eyes opened to the fact that they are paying very much more thas they ought to, and ' we' should find ourSelvest ill regard to the matter of contributing to the national revenue, in a very different position to that we occupy ab presenb." Mr Stevens did nob say bhis, bub he mighb have said it with truth. On the contrary, in an airy manner he assumod as a matter of course that " we " are all of us opposed to direct baxation in any shape or form. He bhen proceeds :" We have been fortunate enough, owing to a certain recovery in the value of the products of our country, to produce a surplus, but had we proposed less taxation we should have had a deficit." This gentleman appears s then, to be condemned out of his owh mouth. Ib was the increased taxation which provided tho surplus, and nob fche recovery in fche Value of bur produebs. Ib will be remembered bhab in bhe session alluded to by Mr Stevens the Treasurer clapped oh extra Customs duties to the tune of £200,000, and wanting still more, he imposed a primage duty Of one per cent., which added Shother £60,000 pet annum to the Customs. The Govern* mont were fortunate enough to bleed the people to .his extra extent without causing a revolution, but Mr Stevens was hardly justified in congratulating the Council and the country oh the result, arid pla6iri£ U _o the credit of the increased productiveness of the colony. The Hon. Sir G. Si Whitmore contributed a little more wisdom to the debate, he objected, of course, to the property tax* as he Was a member of the Grey Government which imposed bhe land tax, bub he says, " Those who ought to be taxed, but are nob, are those people who derive their wealth from tlie misfortufies of the colony." These he enumerates as lawyers, doctors and commission agents, all of whom he says pay nothing. We know thS large landed proprietors, especially the absentees, pay nothing like their fair .Hare to the revenue, arid if Sir G. Whitmore is correct in hie statement,nearly all the Wealthy irieh in th_ colony must escape. Land, according to the speaker, V now pays five-sixths of the whole property tax, and the land is mosb enormously over-estimated by the assessors, and the mercantile incomes are under-estimated. The persona who get most out of the colony are those persons who derive their incomes from what they are pleased to call their brains. The capitalist who invests his money here runs great risks, arid gets low interest, but a professional man who gets a great deal more goes untaxed. I will undertake to say that the best lawyer in the country, Who makes his two or four thousand a year out here, would nob get, with all hi. experience arid learning, more than £100 a year at home as a . law clerk. The difference between these incomes, therefore, he ewe's to New Zealand, and in order to exempt ttiese people law after law is passed." Th. comical incorrectness and absurdly glaring extravagance of this Bpeechis so apparenb that we 1 positively almost owe our readers an apology for in* tfddiicirig ib, bub it is of this thab Hansard is made, arid these aire the utterances of our life-made legislators.

The land does not pay anything like fivesixths of the property tax. The extraordinary delusion the speaker seems to be labouring under, that professional men who live upon what •« they are pleased to call their brains," draw larger incomes from New Zealand than do any other section of the community, makes one wonder whether the bon. gentleman was speaking seriously or joking. What professional man is making £50,000 a year and upwards, as some of our great land-owners are said to be doing ? And the statement that our best lawyers could nob got more than £100 a year in the old country, and the difference between that and the two or four thousand a year they are making through their lot being fortunately cast in this country should be taxed, is a proposal so novel, bub so important, emanating from such a high source, that we must take time to consider it.

The Hoo. Mr Reynolds, who came next, Btood up stoutly for the property tax. He said, " I hold that this tax is as fair a direct tax as can be levied. No doubt there are some defects in it; for example, I think the exemption should be done away with." He, as well as others, speak of this tax as a direct tax ; it is so, however, in a very minor degree. It pretends to be direct; actually it is not. For instance, it is a tax on merchandise, and therefore to a great extent it is indirect. The merchant may pay it in the first instance, but indirectly and unknowingly the consumer Ultimately pays ib. It is a tax on insurance Companies, who again redistribute it over the community in enhanced premiums. Mr Reynolds, in his .peecb, lets us into a secret. Aucklanders have frequenbly been surprised ab the way in which their representatives have played fast and loose with the pledges exacted from them ab tho hustings, notably in the matter connected with the repeal of the property bax and ibs subsbibution by a land bax. Mr Reynolds, we think, lots tho cab oub of bhe bag. Ho is strongly opDOsed to a land tax. He said : "I have heard a great deal during tho session about the advisability of having a land and income tax. I am thoroughly satisfied, having gone into tho thing carefully in past years, that it is quite impracticable. I have argued the point with many members about the lobby, and I have been able to convince ab leasb half a dozen of bho brubh of this." So he must be bho arch deceiver Who goes aboub bhe lobbies, buttonholing members and seducing bhem by his plausible arguments to cancel their pledges, and excuse themselves to their constituent* on the grounds that the time for making these changes was inopportune, and ruin would result to the country if they had voted as desired.