THE Temuka Leader TUESDAY, JULY 30, 1907. GOVERNMENT LIBERALISM.

Temuka Leader, Issue 5543, 30 July 1907, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader TUESDAY, JULY 30, 1907. GOVERNMENT LIBERALISM.

• We wont t<> place before our readers a few comparative .facts concerning the, policy of the present Government. Thu squatters’ leases arc to be for a term o/f'Ctt yea/rs< with the right of renewal the land for" settlement leases are to be for thirty-three years. How d-oes that strike you ? W hat :do you think of giving the squatter 66 years and the poor man thirty-three years. The Conservative party in the past never gave the squatter more than 21 years’ lease. The large/ land-owner will have to -pay a little more graduated land lax, but his sheep tax is lakpn oil, and one pretty well balances the other. The tax is put on the rich man with one hand, and taken oil with the other, just to gull the people, and our glorious Liberal Government calls on us to admire them. Now about this sheep tax ; it is not, and never was, a tax at all. Many years ago .scab spread at an alarming rate amongst the sheep of. t'hih colony, and it became necessary to eradicate it. The Government of the day appointed stock inspectors, and gave them power to destroy scabby sheep, and it was to pay the salaries of-these inspectors that the tax was put on. The tax was put on in the interest of the sheep-owners thornselves, and wob not a tax at all. It was simply money paid for services rendered. The Government looked after the sheep, and their owners paid for the service thus rendered. Thu si the Conservative Government of the past made the sheep-own-ers pay for looking after their ow!a sheap, but the Liberal Government of the present have/ taken tiro burden off the shoulders of the sheep-owners, and put it on the shoulders of the general tax payers. Until now the sheep-owners paid the wages of the stock inspectors, but now wc must all pay them, just to please the Farmers’ Union. That is Liberalism according to Ward, . Then there is (he tax on motor-cars removed, and by way of making up the re wimo caused by lotting motor-ea'rs in free, the (ax on cash-registers is increased, from 10 to 25 per cent'. The motor-car is a luxury which only men who are wd!l off‘ban afford. The cheapest motor-car costs £300,. and by taking 20 per cent, oft that £6O is put into the packet of a man who buys a car, and if ho buys a car costing £SOO, £IOO is put into his pocket. There is then the cash-regis-ter, the faithful, honest servant of the ,-hop-kooper in town.' The tax on 'that is increased by 15 per cent. Mr llobinsoji, a Chris to hu'rch retailer of boots, told the Lyttelton Times of of last Thursday that the tax on the cheap class of boots had been about doubled, while the superior class of boots would come in lower than before. Wo have told our readers from the very beginning what this Govern-* mint was. Wu believe they arc beginning to believe us now. For over a quarter of a-oentnrf this paper has kept tiro Liberal dag dying, and it is time that Liberals had some confidence in us now.