MR GUINNESS AT MAORI CREEK.

Grey River Argus, Volume LVII, Issue 10298, 1 June 1899, Page 4

MR GUINNESS AT MAORI CREEK.

( OUR CORRESPONDENT.;

Mr Guinness addressed the electors in the Gooi Templars Hall last Saturday evpning.

Mr McKechnie whs voted to the chair. He prefaced his address with a few preliminary remarks relating to the impossibility of going round every year to every part of the constituency and giving an account of the session's work. There were such a number of places to go to that he could not aScrd the time and the expense to do it. However, he believed that Mr G. was always approachable whilst 'in town by any of the miners that happened to be down. •

Thegrtfd duty was the first subject Mr Guinness touched on, and this he saiilhejntended to thoroughly elucidate. Summed up, it briefly amounteJ to this: when the gold duty was taken off, the County Council lost a source of revenue that had to be made up in some other direction, with which to maintain our roads and bridges. The mining property tax was then levied to raise the funds to carry out the neces sury. funct : ons of the council— a tax that was unfair for these reasons : it was a tax ou improvements. If a party of men went into." a mining venture and it took tu - ooi?tbre3 yeans to prove whether their ground w.is payable, the more money they expended on this property as each year went -by the tax would -increase correspondingly j and, after all, perhaps their claim would turn out a duffer — their time, labour, and money lost, with the iniquitous Property Tax superadded. The same arguments applied to companies. It co^t the County Council one third of the amount gained from that source to defray the expenses of col.'eoiion ; also, the valuer can estimate the value of your claim at any amount he may think fit, be it inordinate or otherwise. If the former, your only remedy then is to bri?g you •• objection before ihe Revision Con t aid prove that you Lave been t^xed beyond the real value of your property. This of court e entails, expense in engaging counsel f-.r defence, etc., and even ii you gain your case it may have actually erst you more than if } ou bad T-aid tlic t»x iv the fiist insti nee. Now, tin's was irritating, harassing, an ; < !; r.incnt.l to the interests of the mining community. Another point was that the chinamen were almot"

exempt from the tax owing to the •'iflkulty in collecting it from them. The^e were the motives that actuated him when, in Parliament to endeavor to bring about a better state of affairs by reiuaposing the gold duty — but not at two shillings an ounce, as was at first given out, His idea was to wipe out the Property Tax, reduce the miner's rights to five shillings, reduce all registrations of claim privileges to a nominal fee and impose a duty on the gold of ninepence or a shilling. This would bring in a larger revenue than all the aforementioned taxes put together. It also commended itself because it coat nothing to collect, and if your earning power was small your tax would be correspondingly small ; and, 'vhat was more, the chinamen would then be getatable, so to speak. Howtver, the miners did not look at it in that light, as was exemplified by the public meeting that was called to protest agninst his proceeding any further with the motion then before the House. He stayed his hand accordingly, and until the miners came to regard the case from his pofnt of view and request him accordingly he would make no further move in the matter. He then proceeded to deal with the new mining regulations which were made law by the Hon A J Cad man, Minister of Mines, who presided as Governor in Council (in the absence ot his Excellency and tne Premier) at the Cabinet meeting when the rearnlitions were framed. To show how oppressive these rules will provb to the miner lie would draw a comparison between them and the old ones. Assuming that a miner hid been twenty, years absent from the colony, and finding that aftau-a were getting to a low e'/>b with him he resolved to return to open up a piece of ground he knew ot that would return him a fair remuneration on his out 1 ay. With this object in view he comes back to us and prepares to take up the said ground. To <\o so it is necessary to apply for eleven rights. First of all helms to pay two shillings for application forms required for each right respectively. These hitherto were given free of charge. Then he has to pay -five shillings for every registered right (one shilling p>r head extra for every head of water you may require) and more shillings is required to register them ; and farthervnore, they have all to be renewed annually at the cost of one shilling, which brings up a '.otal ofL5 13s 6daa against LI 17s 6d under the old law I Again, you have to be very particular in pegging out your claims and other rights. , Each peg has to be 3ft above the surface, 3in in diameter, and a certain distance underneath the surface ; they have a'so to be trenched six feet ia each direction, six inches wide and six inches depp. In addition to this the initials of each light has to be branded on each pcg — such as "W. K." for watenace. "S. C " for special claim, etc. Furthermore, pegs have to be put in every hundred yard* trei»cbed and initiated as above. Another inconsistency ia connection with the aj -. plication forms was that in filling them in it was oftimes necessary to fill in both sides of the form. This necessitated any person desirous of reading the notice of unwrapping it from off the peg, or tearing it down from the fciee to which it was tack d. as the case may be, in order to read what was on the other side ; otherwise it would be impossible to know unless you were provided with the Rontgen rays or something that you.could real through the wood to which the form was attached. This ought to suffice to show how our- Liberal and progressive Government facilitates the interests of the miners. Further comment on these unjust regulations was needless ; ifc would be his bounden duty when he returned to Parliament next session to I use all his endeavors to get them repealed and the. old ones or more liberal ones reverted to. Mr Guinness's | next subject ' was his advocacy of borrowing L 4,000,000 to complete our unfinished r ilways. He went f ;illy into the subject, putting his views clearly arid pointedly before the hearers. He maintained that he had been a staunch supporter of the Seddon Government from the start.

At the same time he was a blind supporter. If he saw a defect in the administration it was his duty to point it out. If they departed from the liberal line of policy given out by them when they came into power he was not bound to follow them, but to remain firm and urge them to keep moving in the right direction. We have an instance of this in the civil service in the employment of what is called casual hands. He agreed that persons who hand studied for the civil service examinations should get the employment. This was not" the case, casual hands were employed to do the work for the time being and remained there for six or seven years. This was radi- i cally wrong and needed rectifying. ! He was a firm believer in the Old Age Pension scheme. His only objection was that the bill did not go far enough. Alien who we»e qualified for ib in every respect but the one should get it by getting naturalised at once and not have to wait and perhaps starve for five years before they were entitled to it under the present law. "Women should be qualified for the pension at 60 years .of age. There should be no distinction between rich and poor — all should get' it. Persons that had been 25 years in the colony and had become incapacitated through accident or otherwise and were uuable to earn a living should get it also. The revenue should come out of the great purse and not depend on surpluses, because a time may come v/hpn we will have "lean" years, and then the pensions would come short. He dwelt at some length on the customs duties and maintained that there wastoo'much taxation on the necessaries of liff\ The burden of taxation could be altered to a great extent. Mr Guinness then concluded a two hours address, which was listened to attentively th-oughout. In answer to a question by Mr M'Fie, Mr Guinness said he believed that the state should have officers to buy gold, so that miners could get the full value of the precious metal. Mr Tindale moved a vote of thanks and confidence and trusted to see their member representing them in Parliament next year. S conded by Mr Garland and carried unanimously. A vote of thanks to the chairman concluded the meeting.