GOVERNMENTAL PROPOSALS

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume X, Issue 571, 21 August 1880, Page 3

GOVERNMENTAL PROPOSALS

The ' Times' Wellington correspondent telegraphs the following important news : " Various rumors are afloat, the chief being that all the financial bills of the Government are to be abandoned, including the Property Tax Amendment, Beer Duty, Succession Duty, Rating Act Amendment, and Local Public Works Bills; and that eubsidies will be continued this year out of tho Land Fund, so far as ,- t Will go, distributed fro rata ; also that the prorogation is to take place on Friday next. These rumors contain a little truth, with much exaggeration and some absolute falsehood. The Beer Duty Bill is to be passed, and the Property Tax Amendment Bill will be left to the House to carry or reject. If it is rejected, then the Government will collect £40.000 more by taxing personal effects, which the amendment bill exempts; but in any case the propery tax will be collected, and probably the amendment bill will pass. The time for sending in the property tax return, which expires on the 31st insfc., will be further extended, probably to the 30th of September. The Charitable Institutions Bill will also be pushed on. The local finance bills (namely, the Eating Act Amendment and Local Public Works Bills) will be gone on with, provided the House can be kept together long enough to pass them, which is very doubtful, as it is now tolerably certain that members will not stay after this month, and there is little probability of getting through business by that time. It is impossible ito ascertain whether there is any color for the rumor as to the continued payment of subsidies out of the Land Fund, as Ministers are very reticent on this point; but the general impression is that this will be done, and the Land Fund distributed pro rata as far as it will go. The great object seems to be to get the session over as soon as possible.