HE GUM EXPORT TAX AND ROAD MAINTENANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9308, 18 September 1893, Page 3

HE GUM EXPORT TAX AND ROAD MAINTENANCE.

TO THE EDITOR. 1 Sir,—lt is now some weeks since the Gam Commission finished its mud-larking peregrinations in the North, resulting in the production of a voluminous report of the past history and present condition of the industry, but otherwise eliciting nothing fresh, new, or startling. The report has been laid on the table of the House, but nothing more as yet has been done in respect thereof. Since the publication of the report, 1 have been waiting for some expression of opinion re the recommendations of the Commission from some of those more immediately and financially interested in connection therewith, in the hope that some more able pen than , mine would review the situation. As, so far, none have addressed you on the subject, I beg leave to bring the following' under your notice, and through you to gain the attention of my fellow workers :—(1) That to tax any export seems an impoliticmeasure; (2) that such tax, in the present) instance, can only Ultimately fall on, and prove an additional burden to the already heavily handicapped digger or producer; (3) that the magnitude of the proposed tax, £3 per ton, seems to imply tha* the gum industry has practically to bear the full onus of road maintenance, producing as per last year's return a revenue of about £25,000 per annum, thereby giving anidea that gum is the only commodity in the North for which roads are necessary, or that therd are no other ways or means of raising the required funds but by gum. Surely the expenditure of such a sum as the above annually would be ample to put in first-class order all the main roads of the north in two

or three years. But if those roads are practically made and maintained by the gumdigging community alone, they would have the moral right to tabu them against all traffic outside their own business. As that cannot be done, why submit to be saddled alone with this large and important public work ? Are the five thousand or six thousand gumdiggers on the gumfields the only inhabitants of the North to whom roads are a sine qua non 1 If others use the public roads, why should they not contribute to their maintenance? European settlera contribute their share in land rates, while the aristocratic Maori, with thousands of acres of waste lands, and hundreds of cattle, horses, pigs, and sheep, contributes nothing, yet 1 believe I am safe to say that their use ot the public roads, in timber vehicles, bullock waggons, drays, horses, etc., makes a good second to the gum traffic, while sledges and even logs slip along at times without let or hindrance. Sir, if roads are to be made for the public, let the public make them, not at the gumdiggers' sole exEense, pro bono publico. Toll gates have een hinted at as a means of assisting the local bodies concerned. It is a good idea, and capable of producing money which otherwise it were all but impossible to find. It may be objected that the machinery in connection with toll gates would be too expensive. It would probably be no more so, compared with its utility, than that in connection with existing County Councils and Road Boards, neither of whom have much public money to deal with, yet a good deal of what they have goes in travelling expenses to members, and in salaries to other officials in connection with these bodies. This in the meantime may be left for subsequent consideration. Meantime we have been warned that an export duty on gum besides beiug an extra burden on us, may prove so injurious to the industry as to to kill it entirely. It is, therefore, high time to protest against the tax as an impolitic and unjust measure. I do not doubt that the average digger would willingly pay a tax of Is or Is 6d|?ercwt on his earnings for road, purposes, provided he were assured that the money was spent in the district in which it was earned, that is the storekeeper to buy the gum at usual market rates, less the tax agreed on, the County Council collecting the proceeds of the above from the stores. This would produce from £3000 to £12,000 per annum. Let the County, Councils ■ produce a similar sum from tollgates, or some equally good form of taxation, fair to the community at large, and I venture to predict no great hardship or injustice wiil be the result.—l am, etc., A Gumdigger Kaikohe, 12th September, 1593.