PRICES AND TAXATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8535, 8 April 1891, Page 6

PRICES AND TAXATION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,— is without question the fact that many townsmen in this colony re (is " Country Settler" observes) earnin; three or four times as much per day of eigh houts, as successful country settlers can ean daiiy with a greater number of hours' wirk per day, and the country settler has a answerable amount of work to do on Sundays ;besides. It is also the fact that the vorljins men in the towns have at hand society tad amusements in the evenings; good roids, good shelter; and numberless occurs:jus specially planned to cheer them when i ley choose to take a holiday. It is Isc a fact that the money which enables them so to live is almost entirely der ed from the labours of country settlers, p£ tly by selling them goods, and partly by se in? goods for them. It is also the fact that only practical return made for the mpey thus easily drawn from the drudging senlers is to tax them and to propose to tax rem more, and to mortgage the drudges' and spend the proceeds chiefly for the tdvnsman's benefit. Not long ago an upholserer proposed in your columns to tax the spier 3s in the £ on all furniture, simpl because he could not _ work well ejougli to secure easy pay in upholstering! and did not care to become a settler hmself. And now the boot trade proposes to ra:;e the price of boots. It seems to be time nr the settlers to appeal to the reason and goal feeling of townsmen. To put the matte] in its most hopeless form—if the townsman ito be ruined, what pleasure does it give aim ruin the settler first ? If he is to won hard on barely sufficient pay, that is whit the settlers already have to do; and to insure work at all in his trade he mut not ruin the settlers. And yet this has been done, right and left, all ovr the country: so much so that it s far more common for a settler to " chuck up" and come to swell the number of hanclsin the towns than for a townsman to quit his slack trade in town aud come to earn his ow.i living in the country. As a rational beng, in want of work and prosperity, it would le his wiser course to propose a bounty of 3s ii the £ on all settlers' produce exported. It vould take more than that to put him ca an equality with the citizen, who makes the settler pay already in Customs and higb prices more than this, for the differeice it the duty upon finished articles above that on raw material imported ensures a bounty of just that amount upon the labour »f the artisan when he manufactures artides at home and sells them to the settlers.—l am, &c., AjOi.