The Poverty Bay Herald East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. FRIDAY, MAY 30, 1879.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 706, 30 May 1879, Page 2

The Poverty Bay Herald East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. FRIDAY, MAY 30, 1879.

Ministers, we are told by. our telegrains, are at the present time sitting in Council, to consider measures of a fiscal nature, which will be submitted for the approval of Parliament in the coming session. These measurts are (1) to impose an Income Tax, and (2) to extend the present Land Tax, by a graduated system, so as to reach large landowners rather than smaller properties. With respect to the first — an Income Tax — Ministers propose to assess incomes which reach £oi)0 and over, but no income under £500 is to be held liable. The revenue derived from the tax, it is considered, will be ample to allow of a large reduction in many of the chief tariffs levied through the Customs. It is, in fine, promised the wealthy only shall be heavily taxed, and the comparatively poor shall be comparatively exempt. Such a proposal will n * 0 doubt, be hailed with great satisfaction by a large section of the communities oi the colony; but more Kt 5 **;**** coming SI 11 » filiation of the "working man. The proposal is certain to be popular until the fallacy of taxing one class and freeing another comes to be seen in its practical working. Our rich men are not those who live idly upon the interest of their accumulated capital; for we have no aristocracy in the colony, as we find in older countries. In New Zealand, the rich, or those who are reckoned to be so, are all the more or less engaged upon industrial pursuits — pursuits in which they sink the v;hole of their means in extending their estates, and this is done by employing labor, and paying for it at a very high rate. If, then, we allow the wealthy classes only to be taxed they will certainly meet the drain made upon them by engagiug less labor, and paying for the labor they do employ at a lower rate of remuneration. Political economy insists that every man in a state must bear his share in governing the country in proportion to his means. We do not say the wealthy classes have heretofore been made to bear their fair share. On the contrary, they have too long been permitted to escape burthens which they should have shared with their fellow-men lower down in the scale of prosperity. Nor do we say the working and middle classes have not had to submit to impositions which they should not have borne. But there ought always to be medium in all things. What Ministers now propose, if carried, will run in extremes, and the Jesuits will certainly be disastrous to those classes who will be congratulating themselves upon their immunity from taxation. We cannot illustrate our meaning better than by quoting from the speech of Captain Russell, when, on a late occasion, lie addressed his constituents at Napier. «It was," he said, "the fashion for public men to express

themselves in favour of taxing the wealthy classes. His own idea was that that the first duty of a representative was to see that as few taxes as possible were imposed. He .knew some favoured the idea of putting ou a heavy tax " to burst up the largeestates." Had they ever cousidereu the result of such a pi-oceeding 1 Let us take our own province as an instance, and suppose fifty of our richest men taxed to the extent ol £500 a year each. They might think there was £25,000 down, without che poor man being taxed at all ; bm if so, they made a serious mistake. Had they noticed the effect of the tali •)f wool, and seen how materially it liad effected the whole community 'I If the fifty richest men in the province were taxed £500 each it would mean £25,000 worth of labor dispensed with, and 250 men out of employment. As a rule the wealth of our richest men was devoted to the improvement and management ot oheir estates ; they did not keep up extensive establishments, with sparkling wines and showy carriages. The iminediade effect of the tax would be that a large, working population would be out of employment, wages would fall j and the next year the wealthy settlers would find thein- | selves recouped for their extra taxation by the cheapness of labour. To confine the operation of a tax to any one class was impossible ; it would in evitably be felt throughouo the whole community." We have not the least doubt as to the truth of Captain Uussfll's statement. Tax the wealth derived from capital when labor must inevitably suffer } for although capital and labor must ever go haud-in-hand, labor is more dependent on capital than the latter is upon labour. Capital can bide its time and fare sumptuously^ while labor starves. Ministers m their desire to retain the reius of power, make proposals which, shall please the multitude, but they must know that the pleas which support such measures, are founded in gross error and utter fallacy. Wicli respect to a progressive .Land Tax, we regard it favorably always provided it be based not on acreage, but on value. We shall say, for example, let the man who has £1000 woitli of land pay one per cent., and the man who has £2000 pay two per cent, and so on pro rata. .Besides being an excellent barrier against theaccuniulatioii of vast estates, such a progressive tax would have other recommendations — that of absolute fairness. Taxation of some kind is an indubitable necessity in all civilized communities. The functions of Government cannot be carried on without money. All tax ation should be based on equality of sacrifice. Whatever property a man possesses beyond what is necessary to enable him to live comfortably is fairly liable to taxation. The man who has £2000 worth of land is surelyas well able to pay £20 to the State as the man possessing only £1000 worth is able to pay £10. The principle of basing all taxation on equality of sacrifice is so manifestly just, that only the huge power of wealth could have prevented its universal adoption ere now.