VICTORIAN TARIFF.

Press, Volume XI, Issue 1346, 1 March 1867, Page 2

VICTORIAN TARIFF.

The following is from the Melbourne correspondent of the " Otago Daily Times " :— The financial statement of Mr Verdon, our recently returned Treasurer, was made in the Legislative Assembly on the evening of Tuesday, the sth ultimo, and I feel bound to say that his budget has given almost universal dissatisfaction throughout the colony. Chiefly in consequence of a steady falling off in the Customs duties on alcoholic drinks, tea and tobacco, finding it absolutely necessary either to undertake the not over-popular task of vigorous retrenchment in the public expenditure, or to clap on some £200,000 worth of additional taxes, he has decided to adopt the latter alternative, and by means of the Custom-house to add considerably to the burdens of the industrial classes of this colony, for it is principally by those classes that the pressure of the new taxes will be most severely felt. Beginning the year 1867 with an available balance of only £11OS, instead of one of from £130,000 to £226,000 or so, as has been the case in previous years, the proposed new taxations for the present year will, after all, according to the Treasurer's estimate, leave but the nominal surplus amount of £212 available for 1868, the total estimated revenue for 18(57 being £3,380,186 and the expenditure £3,379,944. The new tariff, besides taxing a host of miscellaneous articles of import which hitherto were landed duty free, makes serious alterations in the old rates. The measurement duties are to be abolished, and the ad valorem system i 3 to "be substituted. Under the late tariff, these measurement duties amounted in the average to about 5 per cent.; but, in order probably to make some allowance for the under valuation of goods to which the ad valorem system is certain to give rise, the duties upon the goods hitherto subject to such measurement charges are to be raised to 10 per cent. A similar rate is also to be levied on spices, carpeting, and druggets ; woollens and druggets hitherto free. Oils of all kinds in bulk are to pay 6d per gallon. On miscellaneous imports not specified in a brief list of exemptions, the duty is to be 5 per cent; while a " corn law" is to be iuitiated in the chape of a duty of 9d per cwt. on wheat, and Is per cwt. on flour. The following articles are to come in free:—Live stock, printed books and newspapers, specimens of natural history and curiosities, coal, coke, and fuel, alkali, sulphur, and resin, hemp, flax, jute, cocoanut fibre, fresh meat and fish, guano and other manures, plants and seeds, wool, tallow, hides and skins, horns and hoofs, coin and bullion, timber in the log, shooks and staves, metals of all sorts in the ore, and in pigs, bars, sheets or plates, hoop iron, iron pipes and railway iron,rails, passengers' luggage, cabin and other furniture or personal effects which have been in use, and are not imported for sale, carriages used in the conveyance of goods or passengers across the frontier; and all packages in which goods are ordinarily imported. In addition to the changes in the Victorian tariff above indicated, it is proposed that from the Ist July next" no allowance shall be made for spirits of underproof strengths, and that the weakest as well as the stronger kinds imported after that date shall pay 10s per gallon. These new Customs regulations have not yet been discussed at any length in Parliament, the debate in the Assembly upon their merits or demerits having been adjourned until this evening. In the meantime the public generally, and the organs of public opinion throughout the colony, have epoken out very plainly in condemnation of the scheme, either in part or in toto. And this adverse opinion has been shared by ministerial and oppositionist journals alike, although in the case of the former fault is found rather with the details of the new tariff than with its general plan. Thus, while the "Argus"—l might almost say, of course—condemns the principle of the measure, and advocates a strenuous application of the pruning knife to the estimated expenditure, the " Age" considers the proposed duty of 6d per gallon upon oils excessive, and is by no means zealous for the semi-protective taxes upon the " staff of life." The " Geelong Advertiser " (opposition) is bitter upon the proposed additional restrictions on commerce, describing the 5 per cent, duty on paper as "an attack upon the press," and informing its readers that for a quantity of paper cleared at the Custom-house, a newspaper officer has had to pay a sum of £3 10s; and the " Geelong .Register " (ministerial and protectionist) complains that the new duties are not sufficiently discriminating, and that what is given for the encouragement of " native industry " with one hand is in many instances taken away with the other by the imposition of taxes upon the raw material—and so on with the greater part of the newspapers all over the colony. Such being the state of public feeling with reference to the " ways and means " of the Government, there will no doubt be a warm discussion upon the subject in the Assembly, aud there are very few persons here who think that the ministerial scheme, " pure and simple," will be allowed to pass muster. Modifications in the details of the tariff will,

therefore, in all probability b e ;, . on ; but the nature and extent of i T ** modifications cannot easily " 05 Q dieted, and the subject inusfc quently stand over till my noxt J° n,e '