Evening Post TUESDAY, JUNE 12.1888. THE EFFECT OF THE TAEIFF.

Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 137, 12 June 1888, Page 2

Evening Post TUESDAY, JUNE 12.1888. THE EFFECT OF THE TAEIFF.

are taxed not only by the Customhouse, bnt also by every hand through which the goods pass before reaching their final destination. Toll is taken at every stage, and chargeß accumulate like componnd interest. At tho present moment great *nmi nf money are being wrung frrm tlm l>oc]\<;i.s of th • ismny to awell tho profits of tho few, without the State participating in the slightest dog cc in the spoil. Does not a system of finance voder which Buch a result is not only possible but is actually inevitable, stand self-condemned as extravagant, reckless, and unjnst? The pcoplo can answer the question for themselves.

♦ On* of tho worst features of the method of taxation adopted by tho Government is that it involves the extraction from the pookets of consnmors of an enormously greater sum of monoy than ci»n by Bny possibility reach the Treasury. The wholesale inorcase in the Customs duties which has just taken placo, is in its initial effect npon the pockets of the people most disastrous. We are probably within the mark when we say that it will at tho very outset extract somothing between and £80,000 from them, not one penny of which win go to relieve tho publio burdens. It -will all go into the pockets of importers and middlemen. The almost certainty whioh has existed for some time past that & large increase of duties was inevitable, hag enabled merchants to accumulate in their warehouses great stocks of the goods which were most likely to be increased in duty. It is well known that in all the ports of the colony immense clearances of tea took place, nntil the bonded warehouses were almost denuded of that article. In the case of the low-class teas, tho effect of the new duty has been to incrcaso the value some 555 per cent, to the fortunate holder. In regard to salt, also, considerable speculation took placo just before the Financial Statement was made, and a few firms have made thousands of pounds by their jndioious investments in this artiole. So with many other classes of goods Wo know of one large firm the stock in whose warehouso was worth between £4000 and .£5OOO more on Wednesday morning than it was when they looked their doors on the Tuesday evening on whioh the Budget was brought down. This is an "unearned inorement" from whioh the State derives no benefit. Of course the merobant ia selling to the retailers will charge tho new duties on all his goods, without regard as to whether he has had to pay them or not, and not only tho duties, but the trade profits on them. For a long time to come the consumers will be paying the duties, not into the Treasury, bnt to the fortunate holders of stocks. The people will be taxed without benefit to the State, and the poor will have to pay to the rioh. This iB ono of the natural and inevitable results of the unsound principles upon whioh the Colonial Treasurer's system of finance is based. The people are called on to pay an enormous premium, in order that the Government may bo hereafter enabled to dig deeper into their pookets. Nor will the process stop when the stocks already free from bond are exhausted. The discrepancy between the amount whioh the consumers pay on account of duty, and the amount which finds its way into the Treasury, will continue to be a vbry great one. There will be leakage on alt sides. The mere duties are as nothing. The successive oharges multiply almost as fast as tho value of tho nails in the horseshoe in tho old arithmetical problom. The merchant reooives iJIOO worth of goods nominally subject to 25 per cent. duty. He has, howover, to pay, not i 525, bnt .427 5a duty on the Customs adding 10 per cent, to tho original invoice The importer having to pay £27 5s dnty out of pocket, naturally charges his profit on the outlay, say 10 per cont., whioh makes tho retailer have to pay J829 19s 6d increase of duty, in which expenditure ho also adds say his 10 per cent., so that when tho goods reach the consumer in the most direct manner possible the latter ' has to pay, under guise of duty, 33 per cent, on the original value, of whioh only 26 per cent, peaches the Treasury. This is without taking the 1 per cent, primage duty into consideration. High Customs duties are a terribly extravagant and oppressive means of raising revenue. The consumers