THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1888.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9180, 9 October 1888, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1888.

We publish to-day a detailed account of the late meeting at Waitara, at which certain resolutions were passed, which can be called by no other name than rebellious and revolutionary. They were in effect pledging the Waitara settlers to resist by force the collection of the rate at present imposed on the Taranaki district for the construction of the breakwater at New Plymouth. We must acknowledge that the whole business is a very awkward one, and has a very painful side for everybody concerned. We wish we could see a way out of it, and how to give fair play to all parties interested, especially to the colony.

The people of Taranaki, or rather the people of New Plymouth and its immediate neighbourhood, agitated lor a breakwater. From the very beginning of the settlement it was proposed to construct a harbour there, although Nature in most imperious tones had declared that it could not be done. However contracted and primitive were the ideas of the New Plymouth settlers on other subjects, they were broad and expansive on this. They declared that the harbour could be easily constructed, that it would make a first -class port, and would serve one of the most fertile districts in the colony. With the people of New Plymouth it was "Agitate! agitate! agitate ! :I They at length succeeded in getting leave to borrow. The security was, firstly, a certain proportion of the land revenue of the district, which, instead of going into the colonial exchequer, was to go to the New Plymouth Harbour Board : and, secondly, a rate which might be, imposed over a certain extensive district. This district reached zo Waitara, and beyond it on the one side, and to Hawera on the other. lij was said at the time that the rate was pure surplusage, that the proportion of the land revenue would be quite sufficient, that the breakwater would soon be finished, and would have a revenue attaching to it. But, like many other schemes in New Zealand, this went somewhat " agley." The cost or the breakwater has been far greater than expected, it has been by no means a success, and in the opinion of many is likely to become utterly useless. A Bill was introduced into the House last session on the subject by the Premier, the ultimate effect of which would have been to have cast the whole affair over on to the colony. But Parliament could not see things in that light, and the Bill was thrown out. The New Plymouth people say the colony ought to assume the burden because the waste land laws have been altered since the Act enabling the Board to borrow was passed, and that the effect of the change has been to diminish the amount coming to the Harbour Board from the sales of waste land. We cannot see that this argument is conclusive. The colony could not consent that the law referring to the waste lands should be unalterable simply to suit the New Plymouth breakwater. It was necessary to promote settlement that the law should be altered, and it was altered accordingly. Besides, if the Taranaki Harbour Board has lost in the proportion of land revenue, they have gained in the people who are liable to taxation. As a matter ot' fact, we do not think that theiiarbour Board has been injured in the least by the alteration in the law, but it has a good appearance as an argument, and is being urged with great zeal.

It is certainly a very hard case that the people of Waitara should be called upon to pay a rate which they say will mean ruin to the settlers. They have a port of their own, and one of the chief purposes of this breakwater was to prevent any trade from being carried on from Waitara, and to centre the business at New Plymouth. It would have been a hardship to have made the Waitara people pay for the New Plymouth breakwater if it had been a success, and it is just about as bad to make tliPin pay, to levy a tax on every acre of their land, when the project has not by any means come up to expectation. The settlers of Hawera are also determinedly opposed to the tax, because, as they say, the breakwater is of no use to them, and never would have been of any use. But this argument would apply to the whole district, for the breakwater is certainly of very little benefit even to the people of New Plymouth.

Hut with all the allowances which may be made for the indignation of the settlers of the Waitara district, we must strenuously disapprove of the compact which they have entered into to resist tjie law. We can only accord to the Waitara people our sincere pity in the circumstances. They say that the rate will have the effect of " retarding the settlement of this provincial district. , ' We have not the least doubt of it, but then we could say the same respecting the present heavy Customs dues, the property tax, and our local and harbour rates. They are all burthensome and oppressive, and have the effect of retarding settlement. One resolution says that the rate is a " legalised injustice." That is true enough; but that is the case in scores of instances witli the property tax, but it has to be paid all the same.

Besides, if the settlers of Waitara succeed in their resistance to the law, the colony would simply have to take the debt on its already over-burdened shoulders, or else the bondholders would have to go unpaid. If the Waitara settlers barricade their premises against the bailiffs, and repeat in the "Garden of New Zealand " the scenes enacted in

Ireland, and are successful in repulsing the officers of the law, we really do not know where the evil would stop. There is nothing so easy to find as argument why taxes should not be paid ; and other places besides Waitara would soon find that they were being called on to submit to "legalised injustice." If Taranaki is able to roll over on the colony the whole burden of its debt, then every other locality which is being severely rated will seek to do the same.