Banquet to the Premier.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 570, 14 February 1891, Page 2

Banquet to the Premier.

| OWN COBRESPONDENT. ] Wanganui, last night.

The Hon, Mr Ballance was banquetted at Wanganui last night. In the course of bis speech he indicated the policy of the Government. He said a proposal for a radical change in the incidence of taxation would be made by Government in the ensuing session, and gave the direction which that change would take. It would bo to relieve people who were bearing unjustly an undue proportion of the burden of the Property Tax, and to place it upon broader shoulders—which would be better able to bear it. The Government hoped to be able to relieve somewhat the industrial classes ; they hoped to be able to take some of the weight off the farmers and manufacturers, artisans and laborers, and to place a fair share of the burdens upon those who bad acquired wealth in the colony, and were able to pay additional taxes. The Government 'believed that the time had conje when there should be purchased by the State, at a fair and reasonable price, some of the arable apd valuable land fit for small settlements now in the hands of private individuals, and it was probable that a measure of this character would be introduced in the coming session of Parliament. Government believed that without opposing the sentiments and traditions and feelings of the natives they could introduce a system which would enable the native lands to be let on perpetual lease, giving to European settlers a title as good as freehold, and bringing the natives land owners into a state of mind in which they would lease large quantities of land. He had come to the conclusion, and so had his colleagues, that borrowing in the English market must be discontinued in the interests of the Colony. If they had to borrow within the Colony, it must only be for carrying on the work of colonisation, making roads, and opening up the country.