THE Southland Times PUBLISHED KVERT MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, 31st MARCH, 1892.

Southland Times, Issue 12008, 31 March 1892, Page 2

THE Southland Times PUBLISHED KVERT MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. WEDNESDAY, 31st MARCH, 1892.

I ~~ Now that those unwelcome yellow irtis-sivt-s are coming to every man's door — tlje forerunners of a new impost— peo| le will be asking themselves what sort of a thing an income tax is, and what it is lively to bring a ong with it. It must be confessed that, in theory aud on the ' face of it, there conli be no f*irer tax, and if it were possible to discover by some kind of divina'ion the amount of each man's income, an i to^make cert»in thut this could be kept a bccret from j the world, a chief objection to the tax would be done away. But alas ! who is to make this di.-covery, and w! o ! is to assure us that the ?c'teme f r tax ng the -while income of the colo'iy in terms of t tie new law will 'ne anything but a de'u-ion ami a anare ? We have not tbe figured before us, but it is a wcliknown fact that t ; .e amount of gains in Britain which annually escapes taxation, and which ought to be tax< d, is something stupendous. Wiili all the machinery at command, and af&or half a century of experience, it is still possible to cheat the British Government of an enormous proportion of ' lie income tax t;iot indue. Arc we likely to be i more fortunate here ? Have we in our power any methods that are more iikely to be successful than the methods adopted at Home ? And, putting another question, is the average morality of the iWw Zealand citizen higher than that which he i«>fi behind ? We fear that a negative answer must be given to all tin be interrogatories, and if it must we have to prepare ourselves for a huge shoit coming in tlm amouut of mc linn tax which the Colonial Treasurer wi 1 bring into his net, if he. has rcc : oned on touching the whole income of the colony, clear of the exempMons allowed. Besides, it is a distinct objection to any tax if by its nature it incite s to fraud ; and this an income tax undoubte i!y does by the proved ea-e with which it can bo evaded. If tbe speculations advance! have any value, the consequence of the new tax must be the additional demoralisation of numbers in the community. The property tax was not free of this objection, but, for obvious reasons, it was tainted with it in a much smaller degree. But there remains another and very serious drawback to the tax in question. To meet the widespread tendency to evasion, it is necessary to resort to measures that are odious and irritating to every citizen. Books must be exposed, transactions of all s >rts pried into, the whole secret machinery of business laid bare. This will bo found, we imagine, oue of tho most intolerable concomitants of an income tax, and the one against which the community will be most likely to rebel. Of course no pity is due on this score towards those who may endeavour to cheat the Government, but it is hard that they who shall deal honestly in their returns must be brought, as no doubt many of them will be, to the humiliation of having to submit their most private affairs to tbe eye of an inspector. This tax, originated in Britaiu by Mi Pitt, has b«en in continu ous existence there since it was restored by Hr Hobert Peel in 1842. It is apsuredly tbe most convenient instrument of cxtortiou that was ever invented by a statesman. It is at hand for any exigency, and the audition of each penny used to put another million of poands into the Treasury. No Chancellor of the Exchequer has used it more freely than Mr Gladstone, and it may naturally be supposed that he approves the engine that ho has employed go unsparingly. But this is far from being the case. While making it his sheet anchor of finance he strongly condemned it, and was constantly promising its abolition. Those who fire eramrured of the tax and who fancy that Mr Gladstone is its cdvocare would do well to stn iy the terras in which he has characterised it. He eaid of the iucome tax oa ose occasion that it could not be retained " as a portion of 'he permanent and ordinary fin i : cc of the country." It might bd ca I" 1 into requisition, he said, ii time of v.-?r. But his own opinion was " decidH!y against the perpetuity of the tax as a permanent ordinary portion of our finances." Again, he pronounced iis condemnation ia this strong language — " It is and must be an inquisitorial tax ; it is, upou a scale far exceeding that ot all the other taxes put together, a demoralising tax. . . . L'istly, being loaded with this odium, it must always be a dangerous tax, und it is clearly the one among our imposts through which revolutionary and even democratic finance may most readily carve a road to the

confiscation of property." Wr assume ' that in thi-* colony the iuconip tax is meant by its designers to be, as far as they ran accomplish the end, m endrtriiur tax — "a p'Trnationt ordinary ,ortiiiri of our finances.' They i-tlt theiuselvis " Liberals' — let thorn ponder in how fur lh(»y are drparting, from the theoretical teaching at least, of the groat Liberr.l Vads-r in Knglnn-J. It soems tolerably certain that we in this colony a c to huve a fcr.Kto of the impoHt, and its working and productiveness will go f^r to determine its duration. In Uih land and income tax we »re committed to a great experiment. )he prospect of itn inc. - denee ban b< v <-n without doabt injurious to the oh im-»te in which the colony is held at Horn", and, dependent an wo. are on British iMpitui for tho dcvelopm-nt of our resourc h, we have re.ison to dread nnytiiing that, like this tax, haH the unmistakable, tendency of Hearing away capital. It is difficult to imagine that the financial voice of London is mistaken in its forecastof the effect of our new policy, and that Mr Ballaucn, a. theorist and a novice i ri finance, will find his opposing anticipations fulfilled. The working of the* machinery which he has set a-going may le slow and subtle,hutthe effect will undoubtedly be in accordance with the economic. laws which the best judges affirm be bus had the boldness to disregard.