GOVERNMENT.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4833, 5 February 1887, Page 2

GOVERNMENT.

At all events, at the close of the -financial year the Ministers will have to face a deficit of £150,000. .In Ms recent speech, the remier, after stating that we must cease to borrow as. wo' have been doing, said: ' " What he proposed might entail additional taxation upon people,* and many districts might not get the works that they naturally expected, but ho asked the people to put up with some hardships in order that they might raise the financial standard of the colony." It is clear, therefore, that the Ministry haye therefore contemplated the ' necessity of imposing further taxation. The . Cabinet Council now about to assemble will have to consider what the new taxes have to be. A shrewd statesman. once defined government to be the art of plucking the* feathers from the goose -without causing it to make too much nofae, and that is the problem to which Ministers must now devote their ingenuity. Theyrwill Vant, it is believed, about £70,000 to £80,000 of additional taxation, lit will be reremembered that last session Sir Julius Vogel reduced the property tax by one-sixteenth of a penny, making the amount thirtecn-slxteenths instead of a reduction of £24,000 on the amount of the tax. At the same time, he said that "he was convinced that in every way the colony would benefit if the House were to sanction a reduction of the property tax to gd. and to substitute a moderate increase of duty on articles (other th;m tea and sugar, and such like Accessaries of life) and can ■well bear taxation." But the need has become so groat that wo believe some of the Ministers contemplate it us possible that the duty on sugu- may have to be raised from -id to Id, and the duty on tea from 4d. to od. But the trump card of the Ministry in the ivay of taxation will be to increase the taxation on a large number of articles, on the flea that by so doing they will materially increase the revenue, and at > the same time enrich the colony by protecting native indusry aad by " keeping the money in the country." 1 Thus .they will confer a double blessing. _ These are, we believe, tho plans in the minds of Ministers. Sirß. Stout, as a student of political economy,' does not at all believe in Protection, but then additional taxation must he thinks be imposed. If he Were to impose it amply as additional taxation he would be beaten; but by talking about protection to native industry he can obtain tho support of a number of indrriduls who desire-to have a - monopoly of the! market for commodities in which they are interested. Mr Ballanco - has- persuaded hjniself into the belief that heavy duties for (the purpose of Protection are exceedingly j beneficial. Sir Julius .Vogel has no* political conviction on that subject, but believes that he can keep tho goose quiet whifc plucking its feathers by talking about prqnotioii of industries Tho others will do anjr way tho chiefs decide — Xs .Z. Herald. .\,