N.Z. MAIL PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1887.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 810, 9 September 1887, Page 16

N.Z. MAIL PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1887.

Mr Ormond’s speech at Napier on Tuesday night was a thoroughly characteristic one. None of our New Zealand men possess in so marked a degree as Mr Ormond the power of destructively analysing and incisively denouncing an opponent’s utterances or policy. He has the very great advantage at starting of perfect fearlessness. Office is not necessary —perhaps not even desirable—to him. He is so fortunate as to be quite independent of such considerations. So far from seekiug place and power at the cost of a single conviction ha has practically demonstrated on several occasions that he considers the acceptance of office on his part would be conferring a favour on the public rather than securing any advantage to himself. The Premiership has more than once been within his grasp, on conditions which most men would have deemed easy enough, but which to Mr Ormond were utterly intolerable. His statement that he “ had been offered a prominent position in every one of the Ministries that had been formed since 1884 ” may possibly have been inaccurately transmitted by telegraph ; there is at all events a manifest error, as no Ministry at all has been formed in New Zealand “ since 1884.” In the year 1884 no fewer than three Ministries were successively formed, and probably Mr Ormond really said (or at anyrate meant) that he had been proffered high’ office in each of those, which we believe is the case. A man who is thus able and willing to treat the charms of office as naught in comparison with the sacrifice of a single principle, has a tremendous advantage over most colonial politicians, and over the present Government in particular. No other Ministry ever came so near realising the ideal of the American humourist, whose politicians were all “ fashioned hollow ” on purpose that they might more readily “ their principles swallow.” Accordingly they form an excellent target for such a man as Mr Ormond, and he riddled them mercilessly with his venomed shafts. He also tore away with unflinching hand the veil of sophistry and misrepresentation with which it has been sought to confuse the issue on which an appeal is now being made to the country from the verdict of the last Parliament. That issue, as he truly states, is “ Whether there should be an increase of taxation, or whether. an extravagant governmental expenditure should continue.” That was the question submitted to the late House by Ministers ; on that question they were defeated, and on that question they appealed to the country. It is idle to pretend that all sorts of other issues are involved in the appeal. The one single issue on which the judgment of the constituencies has to be pronounced is this: Shall there be a large increase in taxation as proposed by the Government, or shall this be averted by adequate retrenchment? That is the question to which the electors have to return an answer at the ballot-box on the 26th instant. Mr Ormond holds that public borrowing is justifiable for the purpose of completing legitimate railways now under construction. There can be no doubt at all that the speedy completion of the Palmerston-Woodville link of the Great Northern line is abso lutely imperative, and that to finish the Marton-Awamutu link of the same system is very desirable ; also that these must be done with borrowed money if no better scheme can be devised. But we have lately urged very strongly that a plan for the completion of the 1 unfinished lines by means of land grants, as in the case of the Mana watu and Midland lines, should be carefully considered before any fresh loans are authorised. If such a scheme were framed with due care it might be made at the same time beneficially conducive to settlement. We hope that the idea will not be lost sight of. Mr Ormond’s dislike to the property tax is notorious, but on this point we entirely differ from him. Those people who clamour for a land-tax conveniently ignore the fact that there is already a land-tax. Land is taxed just the same as any other property.

What the land-taxiefs therefore really 1 mean is not to put a tax on land—because it is on already—but to take it off" other property. Why should this be ? Why should not all invested money, whether in land, or in shares, or in mortgages, or in bill discounting, or in tradestock, pay alike? Why should money spent in luxuries escape paying its share ? We can discern no valid reason. The plea that the propertytax is a tax on thrift would apply to any tax on the investment of savings, whether in land or in stock. The only cases in which the property-tax is really a hardship are when it is levied on a tradesman’s “dead ” stock, and on thesmallinvested fundswhose proceeds constitute the sole support of a widow or orphans, or other helpless persons. In these respects the mode of levying the tax might be modified, but we dissent from Mr Ormond’s view that the property-tax ought to be abolished. There are other points in the address to which we may refer on a future occasion. The speech as a whole, and as a scathing criticism of the acts and proposals of the present Government, was a very able one, and worthy of Mr Ormond’s reputation.