THE GUM DIGGING QUESTION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 5947, 8 December 1880, Page 6

THE GUM DIGGING QUESTION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —By your permission I would insert the following respecting the proposition Mr. Firth is about to make at the next sitting of the Waste Lands Board. It would appear that Mr. Firth has just arrived at the conclusion that kauri gum lauds are sterile, aud generally unfit for cultivation. Yet these are the lands that have been sold to 40-acre settlers and others to make a living out of. Now it is proposed to replenish the diminished resources of the colony out of these sterile lauds, for the proposed tax will fall alike on gum got from private property as on that from the Crown lands of the colony. I thought when the Crown sold land everything it contained, whether above or below the land, was sold with it. If so,

then I fail to see how the Waste Lands Board can entertain such a proposition. Just as much right has the Board to levy £1 per 1000 feet of timber from private property. And then why should Mr. Firth be so anxious to raise the revenue of the country at the expense of kauri gum ': It is not gum or gum land that is the cause of the depression in the colony. The colony has not spent its borrowed millions on the sterile lands of the North, nor has a tithe of it been spent for the benefit of poor unfortunate settlers on such lands. Therefore, Mr. Firth should look to more favoured localities if he is desirous of raising the wind, and placing the colony in financial fair weather. Ido not think there is any cause for taxing kauri gum, whether obtained from private or public property. It has been of immense benerit to Auckland. Auckland has tided over the depression which lately visited the colony better than any other part, and solely because of the existence of kauri gum. Men turn to that when every thing else fails. Auckland would have needed all the remedies of the soup-kitchen, ic., the same as the other centres of population, had it not been for kauri gum. We should respect the horse that carries us safe over the river. If every person paid according to value received from borrowed money, which is the only legitimate means to place the colony in a right position, there would be no need of the proposal to tax kauri gum.—l am, ic, Dairy Flat, December 4. G. G :-'.££:;.