A SOUND SYSTEM OF TAXATION.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 3645, 21 January 1899, Page 4

A SOUND SYSTEM OF TAXATION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —The tenor of the article in your issue of the 17th instant under the above title appeared to me to be “ strike off £700,000 from the Customs duties and put it on small settlers.” Do you not think it would bo as well for you to ascertain, by a careful investigation by means of one of your reporters, whether small settlers are at present in a position to bear any extra taxation? For it mast follow, if £700,000* are taken from the Customs duties and put on the small settlers, that they (the settlers) will bo more heavily burdened than at present. The great bulk of the land lying north of Palmerston, Peildlng and Marton is hilly country, and fit only for raising sheep and grazing store cattle, and I have no hesitation in saying that, owing to the low price of wool— especially the torn, earthy and blackened fleeces produced in newly-felled hilly.bush country—the settlers have hard work to make income and expenditure balance, and cannot therefore bear any extra burden. I will give you two typical cases illustrative of the above. I vouch for the truth in both cases. ’ One settler owning 300 acres of hilly country has about 200 acres in grass. He has to go out shearing and working on road contracts because Jie cannot obtain suffi-, oient income from his farm to keep himself and family. He is hardworking and Steady, spending nothing on drink or gambling. The second settler alluded to has 350 acres, all in grass, but very broken country. He has. to nhear _and take contracts for fencing, &c., to make both ends meet. When his bush was first felled, burnt, and sown down in grass, he was able to make a good living by his sheep ; but now, wool has gone down in price, and, what is still worse for him, his land does not carry as many sheep rs formerly,owing tb the grasses sown on the steep faces of the hills having almost disappeared., Indeed, many kinds of grass have gone. This settler is a hard-work-ing,'steady fpllpw, and has spent all his life oh farms. Would it not be better for him, and also for the colony at large, if, instead of placing heavier taxation on his shoulders, he were, shown how to roclothe his hills with grasses that will stand, so as to be able to keep more sheep,on his farm? It 1 must be borne in mind that the deterioration of the carrying capacity of hilly country is going oh all over the North Island, where we have about 15,000,000 acres of purely pastoral country, a large porion of which is, however, in bush at present.—l am, &0., George Wilks, Levin.

[Mr Wilks’ letter is not at all to the pomt, unless his opening. assumption is proved—that to take £700,000 from the Customs and get the amount from land tax would put an increased burden on |mall gettlers. The whole intention of qur arfiele'yviis to show'that the change would benefit the small settler, by relieving him of taxation to the extent of £2 to £3 a year. We are quite aware that it would be unjust to increase the taxation of the small settlers.— Ed. N.Z. Times.] '