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New Zealand Mail, Issue 771, 10 December 1886, Page 16

It is satisfactory to learn that, howsver badly other branches of the colonial revenue have turned out during the current year, there is every probability that the Property Tax will fully realize the Treasurer’s estimate, and may possibly exceed it. We are in a position to state on authority that although the tax for the present year istiot due until the 14th inst, the payments are coming in freely and rapidly even at this early date. A large sum has already been received by the Commissioner, and a great number of people whose possessions range from a very high value to the smallest taxable amount, have paid their tax at the various Post Offices.

Yet another accident is chronicled as resulting from the use of Auckland-made ammunition ! This formidable succession of mishaps is calculated most seriously to prejudice the prospects of an important colonial industry important not merely on industrial grounds, but still more as tending to render the Colony independent of outside supplies of ammunition in the event of war. It is to be hoped, therefore, that some satisfactory explanation may be forthcoming. Sir George Whitmore states that when defects in the cartridges were made apparent, orders were issued for the return to the Government of all cartridges of the colonial make. A.

great many were returned; but some 30,000’were retained by shoofcrngclubs and others, and it is thought" probable that the recent accidents may have been due to the use of these earlier-made and notreturned cartridges. Oh the other hand, it must be noted’that the victim of the KTaikoura accident —the latest recorded—is a member of the police force, therefore unlikely to have disobeyed the official order to return tfie cartridges. The affair i 3 involved in complexity, but we trust that the New Zealand manufacture will in the end be fully vindicated.