AN INTERESTING VISITOR.

New Zealand Mail, 15 February 1900, Page 26

AN INTERESTING VISITOR.

HON THOMAS BUCKLIN', OP COLORADO. SEEKS INFORMATION ON REVENUE QUESTIONS. ASTOUNDED AT NEW ZEALAND'S DEBT.

It has become quite fashionable of late for public men from other parts of the world to come to the Australias in search of information in regard to those problems which are. everywhere agitating the minds of statesmen, jurists and philosophers at the present time. It is undoubtedly complimentary to the people of these young and ambitious communities that it should be bo. Gur latest visitor is the Hon Thomas Bucklin. a Colorado senator, who has come to Australasia armed with authority from his fellow-senators of that American State to make full inquiry and to furnish a report on the revenue systems of these colonies. It is to satisfy no mere academical desire for information, Mr Bucklin on Tuesday informed a "Times” reporter, that this voyage of inquiry has been undertaken. Colorado, in common with most other American States, gets most of its revenue from property tax. cut it has been found that this tax has comparatively broken down in practice as a revenue producer ; also ::ts incidence operates in a most partial and unjust manner, bearing particularly heavily upon the poor and middle classes. Under this system those Thugs of modern times—the trusts — succeed in escaping most of the burdens of government. In addition to this, in Colorado. Mr Bucklin says, there is a constitutional limitation to the amount- which can be collected by this means. Therefore, though the property tax has been collected to its utmost limit, the necessary expenses of government are found to be exceeding the income. The people are very much opposed to enlarging this limitation or repealing it. This has placed the Senate in a quandary. Therefore, it has appointed Mr Bucklin to investigate the systems of direct taxation in these colonies, and particularly the land tax. Our visitor has found that in two other colonies besides New Zealand (New South Wales and South Australia) there is a land tax in operation. In Queensland and South Australia, as well as New Zealand, there is a law in force concerning local taxation on unimproved values. Mr Bucklin lias made a careful investigation into the character or these lavs, and so far as possible into their fiscal and economic effects. The result is that he finds that in all four colonies these laws have been so much of a fiscal success as to have practically annihilated all opposition to them. There is in some or the colonies some dispute as to what the economic effects have been, but in none of them- is it asserted that they r.re in their economic effect detrimental to the States which have adopted them. Mr Bucklin finds that these laws first originated in New Zealand in IS7S with Sir George Grey’s Government, and from here they have spread into the other colonics. In fact, all the Australian colonies which have not adopted the legislation of New Zealand in this respect have at one time or another passed similar measures through their Lower Houses, but these have met with untimely fates at the hands of vJtra-Oonservative Legislative Councils. Our visitor goes, sc far as to say that since the adoption of the land tax here there has been, according, to the records, an appreciable improvement in. the material welfare of the oeople. Therefore, the land tax has been a great- boon, to New Zealand. On the other hand, the revenue which we obtain from Customs duties strikes Mr Bucklin as. being excessively large. Colorado is very like New Zealand in area, population and advanced legislation. But it differs from New Zealand in the amount of taxation which its Government exacts from the people. More than all it differs from New Zealand in the- amount of its public indebredne s. Mr Bucklin is astounded at the amount of our public debt and the growth of it. He compares Colorado’s debt of £400.000 with New -Zealand's forty-seven millions, and with due diffidence, as a stranger, expresses the opinion that it is about- time the people started on a directly opposite tack. He notices that there is a natural tendency to extravagance amongst the people, who encourage instead of curb.ng their successive Governments in the expenditure of money. Of course, there are compensations in our New Zealand methods which have to bo taken into account. For instance, in Colorado there is a private ownership of railways, and the people have to pay interest on railroad bonds and stocks, besides excessive charges, thus increasing the bonded indebtedness. There is also the private ownership of telegraphs, and the people have to pay thrice as much for the service as the people of New Zealand do under Governmental enterprise. Thus are the people of Colorado subjected to indirect taxation of an exorbitant kind which would not be countenanced here. Mr Bucklin has received more of the kind of information he sought in New Zealand than elsewhere. Here, he discovers. we have carried the system of land taxation further than elsewhere,

and with very beneficial results, because we. have put the burden on me. right shoulders. He thinks we might extend this beneficence by still further increasing the land tax, say another penny, and taking a proportionate amount off our Customs taxation. While desiring to be a little modest as a stranger in expressing an opinion, it appears to our visitor from investigation? he has made that the great prosperity which is clearly apparent in New Zealand comes more from our liberal land laws and land settlement system than from our so-called labour legislation. In regard to land settlement, Mr Bucklin has one revolutionary remark to make, and that is that, in his opinion, we should, at the outset, instead of purchasing land from big owners (thereby placing a heavy additional indebtedness on the colony) have enlarged and enlarged our land tax until they would have been glad to let go. In short, he would have taxed them out, instead of buying them out; but he would! have clone it only by the most conservative and gradual process. Referring to our scenery, Mr Bucklin says there are three Switzerlands—one in Europe, one in Colorado and one in New Zealand. He has received much benefit to his health by his sojourn in tin’s colony. He is full of praises of the courtesy and kindness of local officialdom, from whom he has received much assistance in his search after knowledge. . In the land tax he thinks he sees a solution of tile trust difficulty, against which in America all true patriots are up in arms. It lias been ruled universally by the law Courts that the States have unlimited power of direct taxation. Here is a chance of first establishing the principle, then gradually putting on the screw and squeezing monopoly to death. Thus * only can the people of America return to that freedom and independence which was once their proud boast. New Zealanders will wish Mr Bucklin God-speed in his mission.