CORN DUTIES.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4269, 25 November 1874, Page 3

CORN DUTIES.

The Aryus has the following in a recent issue, which might be studied with profit by New Zealand politicians : A correspondent pointed out in our yesterday’s issue that a hard-working and ill-requited class in our community suffers great hardship through the operation of the import corn duties. Following up the subject a little further, we find ample confirmation of his complaint. The quantity of maize imported into the* colony last year was 610,750 centals, and on this duty*was paid to the amount of £30,573. Accepting the statement of pur correspondent, that the maize tax falls chiefly upon draymen, cabmen, and wood-carters, it is certainly a gross injustice. The amount we have mentioned is a considerable deduction from the earnings of the class by which the larger portion of it is contributed —aud for what object ? To encourage agriculture, it will be said. That is, the cabmen and wood-carters of the colony, who sometimes have to work half the night or they would be unable to pay for their horses’ feed, pay thirty thousand pounds a year for the support of those down-trodden persons who are at present flying over the colony at reduced railway fares to buy or sell thousand guinea bulls ! At least that is.the intention of the maize duty. Let us sco how-far the intention is fulfilled. The quantity of maize raised within the colony in. the agricultural year 1873-4 was 40,347 bushels, or 21,787 centals, against the- 610,750 centals imported. Or, to put it in another way, to raise the price of 1001 b. of maize, to the enrichment of the comparatively opulent Victorian producer, the price of 28 centals is increased, to the further impoverishment of an already indigent class. To put one shilling into the pocket of the farmer, we take £1 Bs. out of the pocket of the cabman ; and it is scarcely possible that when its operation is represented in this way, the most rabid protectionist will have the hardihood to say that the maize tax is nob a monstrous imposition. It is only fair to add, however, that the farmers, as a class, do not desire protection, as indeed it would be very strange if they did. As has been seen, the maize duty, while bearing very heavily upon the consumer, is of no appreciable value to the producer, while the latter is subject to a hundred vexatious imposts which form part of the same system that produced our corn duties.