THE LOCAL TAXATION OF MACHINERY.

Evening Post, Volume LI, Issue 62, 13 March 1896, Page 2

THE LOCAL TAXATION OF MACHINERY.

4. Unless the City Counoil wishes to rest under the imputation of being completely indifferent to the industrial and commercial progress of the oity, its members will probe the merits and demerits of the alleged tax upon maohinery to the bottom without delay. ReoogniEiDg the importance of the issne, we have reported the discussion that took plaoe in the Council last evening on the subject at some length, and we oommend its perusal to every manufacturer and wage-earnor in the oily. If the maohinery in use in our faotories has been taxed in tho past without the knowledge of the owners, it appears both a discreditable and an unjust proceeding ; but, setting that aspect of the question aside for the present, the tax appears to be now openly imposed. Hence the deputation of ironworkerß and others to 'the City Connoil last evening, and the proceedings reported elsewhere. With these gentlemen we feel sure the publio will have the strongest sympathy. They advanced a perfectly tenable statement in saying that the taxation of maohinery in Wellington would mean also a corresponding taxation of wages, and at the presont time employers were already at their wit's' end to 1 carry on without ontting down prices. Then, too, it was reasonably asked that, if it was legal, its operation be suspended nntil the law be altered. And as to this point, the Mayor justly observed that it was a form of taxation that should be set in motion, if at all, by the Legislature, and not by a local body. An absurdity of 'the situation is that i the members of the Counoil laat evening, from the Mayor downwards, admitted their ignorance of the whole question. They apparently did not know how the tax on maohinery arose, whether it was legal, or if its application was local or general. Then the City Solicitor was asked to explain the position, and proceeded to say that " it was quite incorrect to sayit was a tax upon maohinery as machinery. Tbe maohinery on the premises improved tho annual value of the property, and had ■ always been taxed." To this ono of the speakers rejoined, " It is a quibble to say it ' is not taxing maohinery;" and with that ■ speaker we agree. A more reactionary prinoiple, one more calculated to retard I progress, cripple industry, and injuriously affect wages, could not be devised, aud the 1 Councillors should have swept it into the limbo of oblivion at onoe. We hope, however, they will do bo when next tho question comes before them.