BEWARE FARMERS.

Press, Volume L, Issue 8650, 27 November 1893, Page 2

BEWARE FARMERS.

REASONS WHY FARMERS SHOULD VOTE FOR THE SUPPORTERS

[ADVERTISEMENT. ]

OF THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT :—

1. Because, the Liberal Government abolished the iniquitous property tax and substituted a land and income tax. The obnoxions property tax taxed all improvements, stock, household furniture and effects ; was exceedingly oppressive to the holders of small or moderate-sized farms, owing to the improvements being larger in comparison to the value of the land, and exceedingly favourable to the holders of large estates on which the improvements were comparatively small. The value of the exemptions on improvements, stock, &c, exceeded £40,000,000. The deficit in the revenue which these exemptions would cause had to be made up by au income tax, which is paid by the people resident in the towns, and by a graduated land tax on estates the value of which exceeds £55000 exclusive of improvements. This graduated tax made the owners of great estates pay something for the enormous rise in the value of their land consequent upon the expenditure on public works and for immigration. 2. There is not a single farmer, owner of land with improvements, stock j &c, of the value of £510,000, but pays leas under the Land Tax Act than he did under the property tax. 3. There is not a single member of the Ministry but is opposed to land nationalisation and the single tax. The Conservatives know this, yet unblushingly say and write to the contrary. Is this honest ? 4. The Government have done all they could, and will do all they honestly can, to settle the people on the land, believing the only sure foundation of prosperity for the colony ia an agricultural population occupying holdings of a moderate size. The Government passed the Land Act, limiting the size of sections to be acquired by any one by purchase or on lease, and prohibited the owners of two thousand acres and upwards from taking up more Crown land and competing with intending settlers. The ballot system has been established, thus giving the man of moderate means the chance of acquiring a section. They have effectually put down dummyism and have carefully protected the interests of real settlers, hence the wild fury of the land rings and Capitalists. „, 5. They have obtained dairy experts from England that the best methods of manufacturing butter and cheese might be explained to the farmers ; as they (the Government) clearly foresaw this great industry would become of exceeding value to New Zealand.

These are some of the things the Government have done for the farmers.

The people' of New Zealand have done this: They have swept away for ever all remnants of the f ?old "Continuous Ministry"—a Ministry which borrowed recklessly and spent lavishly; obtaining and retaining a majority in Parliament by rrofuse expenditure of loan money in the districts of their supporters—a Ministry which in 1884 raised the rate of railway carriage on grain some 30 per cent. This last obnoxious impost, the Canterbury farmers will not soon forget. The members of that Ministry were Sir H. Atkinson, Messrs Mitchelson, Rolleston, Dick, Bryce, Conoliy, and Olliver. No, the farmers will not forget these things, nor will they vote to displace the present Ministry and substitute a Conservative remnant, who would re-impose the property tax if they could, who would certainly abolish the graduated tax on big estates, who would abolish the absentee tax, and who would, as in times past, pass laws favourable to the great landed proprietors. ( The farmers of New Zealand know which party lessened their taxation ; and, notwithstanding the Tory raving in Conservative papers the farmers will be true to themselves and to their country and support the Ministry of the people.