POPULATION AND TAXATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14688, 24 May 1911, Page 6

POPULATION AND TAXATION.

The census returns, now practically completed, show that the population of the Dominion will barely exceed a million. These returns give a population of 984,654, and as the returns still to come cannot exceed 20,000, the Dominion has a total population for 1911 of slightly under 1,005,000. This represents an increase of little more than 116,000 since 1906. This is approximately the increase recorded for the previous quinquennial period of 1901-6, which was admittedly unsatisfactory considering the large addition made to the public debt, the rising national expenditure, and the increasing burden of taxation, which taxation can only be lightened by being distributed over a population increasing in harmonious relation to public indebtedness. Speaking upon national finance at Dunedin a few days ago Mr. Millar stated that the Public Debt is now over £81,000,000. Taking the gross Public Debt for the last three census-years, and comparing it to. population, we have the showing:

Debt per Debt. Population, head. jg e£ g (1 1901 ... 49,591.000 772.700 64 3 7 1908 ... 62,191.000 ' 889,900 69 17 7 1911 ... 81,078,000 1,005,000 80 1 6 The net indebtedness is somewhat less than this, but the relative increase is much the same. The figures show with irresistible force how much more rapidly our debt is growing than our population. Much of the debt is sooner or later revenue earning, but this does not prevent the national expenditure from similarly increasing at a disproportionate rate. This has to be made good in some way or other from revenue, and there is rarely a year when the amount thus drawn from each individual does not increase. The total revenue and amount per head in the same census-years were:

Total revenue. Per head. £ £ 8. d. 1901 ... 5,905,000 7 14 4 1906 ... 7,650,000 814 4 , 1911 ... 10,297,000 10 410 It will be said, of course, that all this revenue is not taxation, though increased railway rates may certainly be regarded as taxation. But taxation alone shows the same increasing burden upon the individual owing to the strange policy which accumulates public charges, while discouraging increase in population. If we take Customs alone, which represents the greatest source of revenue, and one falling upon the entire population, we find that for 1911 it reached the huge sum of £3,027,000, that deed stamps exceeded £800,000, land and income tax £1,035,000. The national taxation, which in 1901 was £3 19s 6d per head and by 1906 had risen to £4 7s 7d per head, is now over £5 per head. But the situation is self-evi-dent. If we constantly increase the cost of administration, constantly borrow and steadily expend these borrowings,. we must pay in some way or another, and if we fail to increase our population as fast as we increase debt and charges, the burden of taxation must grow constantly •heavier. Every industrious man who has drifted away to Australia has left his share of our Public Debt for others to pay, and his contribution to Public Revenue, whether by taxation-or by payment for State services, for others to make good. And every acre which might be productive, but which lies locked up and idle, increases the burden upon every citizen and the charge upon every producing acre. Just how long this extraordinary form of misgovernment can continue Ministers may not be able to tell us, but it must be obvious to everyone that it cannot possibly continue indefinitely.