Hawke's Bay Herald TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1867.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume 11, Issue 818, 15 January 1867, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Herald TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1867.

The actual operation of the stamp tax, coupled with the enhanced customs duties upon articles of daily consumption, have brought the fact forcibly home to every man's understanding, that we live in a country which, while for many years it could boast of comparative immunity from taxation, is now one of the most heavily taxed in Her Majesty's dominions. Figures have already told us that such is the case ; and actual experience confirms the fact. A heavily taxed colony, however prosperous it may be in other respects—and New Zealand is certainly prosperous in an eminent degree— is not attractive as a field of immigration ; and we all know that it forms the special aversion of capitalists. We want labor and we want capital ; but our supply of these essentials to a colony's welfare must continue limited so long as the colonists are burdened with heavy taxation and it is quite upon the cards, as racing men say, that New Zealand will suffer declension similar in cause and operation to that which has brought the colony of Tasmania to its present low ebb. The vexatious part of the matter is that the colonial debt, towards the payment of the interest on which this additional taxation has been imposed, is, in point of fact, a debt for which the colony should never have been liable. It has been contracted solely through the war with the natives — a war which was induced by years of Downing-street misrule, declared by Imperial Governors, and botched by Imperial Generals. Even when an opportunity presented itself of recouping to the. colony a part of the enormous expense which had been incurred through the manner in which the war was conducted, Imperial interference stepped in, and the intended confiscation of the Waikato was arrested by a despatch of Mr. Card well. A very young colony has been crippled in a way altogether unprecedented in the history of British colonization. It is the only colony that has ever been charged with the cost of a war — or at all events that has attempted to pay it. A " little bill" was once presented to the Cape colonists, but, in the most respectful manner imaginable, they declined to accept it. They justly regarded the war as one of Imperial origin, and declined the responsibility which, under similar circumstances, the colonists of New Zealand generously, but shortsightedly, took upon themselves. The .position of New Zealand in this respect has lately been admitted by a writer in one of the English journals — the Spectator — who, after setting forth the extraordinary efforts that have been put forth by the colonists to meet the expenses incurred by the war, suggests that the Home Government should pay the colony a sum down, in part satisfaction at least of the extraordinary liabilities it has incurred. "We trust that the suggestion of this writer will meet a response in other influential quarters, and that the colony may be relieved in some measure from the incubus which now oppresses it.