The Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. MONDAY, JULY 14, 1879.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 834, 14 July 1879, Page 2

The Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. MONDAY, JULY 14, 1879.

duR. special correspondent has succeeded m furnishing readers of the Herald with -an outline of the Ministerial pi'ogramme as will be shadowed forth m the speech which is to be delivered m Parliament tomorrow afternoon. Nearly the whole of it may be summed up m two -words : — Additional Taxation ; and this without any corresponding reduction m the dutiable articles of every-day consumption. The " working man " is to be taxed as of yore, and those m receipt of income,, whether from salary or profits of trade,, m excess of £150 per annum are to be taxed two and a | half per cent, or, six-pence m the pound sterling. Timber and grain are to be '• protected," which means that while a few mill-owners are to earn larger profits than those who desire to build— poor and rich alike — must pay more for '"material ; and that those who consume bread shall pay more to the producers. The many are to be taxed for the benefit of the few. The consumer is to not buy m the cheapest market, unless, he be taxed, while the producer is to receive special indulgence. It is a policy long , since exploded wherever enlightened governments exist. In the colonies, where the system of " protection " obtains, the people languish and thousands are pauperised, notably as m Victoria. Where it has been swept from the Statute Books the people continue to progress, prosper, and flourish as m New South Wales. No statesman, entitled to the name now-a-day, ever dreams of advocating a policy by which the few ai*e benefitted at the expense of the multitude. The leading advocates of protection are invaiiably discovered to be charlatans. The imposition of an income tax will create inmimerable openings for the unemployed gentry who are ever hanging about the doors of the Government departments, and beseeching for a first vacancy for anything which** may mean salary, for something which does not call for brain work ; or occupation which demands the minimum of labor with the maximum of pay. There is to be a " Land Tax Amendment Bill, which is understood to mean that the revenue to be derived from this source will be largely in-

creased. The Loan Bill to be introduced will ask for a sum that will complete the lines of authorised railways, and railways that have not been authorised ; for, during the recess Mr. Macafdrew, as Minister ot Public Works, has sanctioned the expenditure of some three hundred thousand pounds upon lines which were never mentioned m the last session of the Assembly. Parliament, as it is now constituted, really possesses little or no power. It passes or rejects proposed expenditures, but nosoonerarethemembers away to their homes, than Ministers spend as little as they like to purposes for which moneys have been voted, and as much" as they can handle for works of which Parliament has never been consulted. We suppose this is what Ministers would term Constitutional Government. If any one Act more than another is demanded ab this present time, it is one to define and limit the powers of Ministers, more especially m the expenditure of money, between the closing of one session and the opening of the next. It is quite possible a new loan may be floated, which will give employment to surplus labor for a time, and set the machinery of some of our factories and workshops m motion ; but such a policy must exhaust itself. We cannot always be borrowing money for the purpose of using up the unemployed, which, with a few exceptions, are the refuse of the labor market. The interest of those loans has to be paid from the resources of industry m the shape of increased tavation j and just as it is the last straw which breaks the camel's back, so with an income and property tax m addition to all the imposts the people of the country are now made to bear, we have reached that point m which any increased burden will be resisted and thrown off. People have been weighted with the last staw they are able to bear. We, most of us, know the hazard incurred by those who, m private life, borrow money to stave off the evil day, and that which applies to men as individuals applies to men who make up the aggregate of communities. With the present commercial depression, the falling off of gold returns, the low value of cereals, and the depreciation m the price of wool, it will be a long day before the country can hope to recover its commercial equilibrium. Certainly, additional taxation at the present time will help still farther to retard it. The interest annually upon our present public indebtedness is now one . million two hundred thousand pounds, and this,, for a population of a little over a quarter of a million of souls all told. A country so sparsely populated as New Zealand to be able to pay so -much annually, bespeaks us as exceeding m natural and acquired wealth all other countries of which we have any record. But we do not think that the people will be able to stand the. pressure of much more additional taxation than that which we at present have to submit to. Unless the Government retrench m present lavish expenditure, as all olasses have lavely been compelled to, the country must come to grief, and we shall not be very long before we are made to feel it.