The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, JUNE 16, 1870.

Timaru Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 1477, 16 June 1879, Page 2

The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, JUNE 16, 1870.

The Government having graciously ex- . tended the time originally pi'escribed i "for making objections to the land tax 1 valuations by two days, m order to get over the legal difficulty caused by their . depositing the lists m the wrong . places, objections may be made until Thursday next. Whether persons ■ desiring to make objections will be able \ to find out how to do so, or to obtain forms, or to understand them when they • get them, is another question, aud one with which a liberal Government have apparently nothing to do. Their object, of course, is to give the least possible facility for objections to be made ; and, as they have absolute control of all the arrangements connected with the ad- . ministration of the Act, it is useless for the public to complain of the grossest 1 violation of the intention of the law, " provided the bare letter of it is com- | plied with. r The land tax was conceived m the 7 very spirit of petty tyranny, jealousy, ; and ignorance of the social circum- ' stances of the people ; and the manner v m which it is being levied is quite m '( keeping with the principles upon which . it is based. Mr Stout's idea of liberal • government, is a system under which | the party m power have full liberty to harass and injure all classes of the t community against whom they have an antipathy, and to experimentalise upon • the people at large, without regard to J the interests or feelings of the victims tof their empiricism. The country is I now beginning to comprehend the effect s of such a system of Government, and its • comprehension of it will expand as time ' goes on, until it is perfected by the actual collection of the land tax. When half the landowners m the country are ' m litigation against the Government, ; and the other half are being persecuted > by the Government, Mr Stout perhaps , will be satisfied with the results of his first experiment ; and will seek m the i pages of Cooley or Herbert Spencer, 1 for some new device for breaking | up settlement, intimidating capital, ; and setting classes by the ears. Of all the various descriptions of polii tician with which a country can be cursed, the meddlesome, inexperienced, prejudiced theorist, is about the most disastrous; because he is the slowest to discern his errors, antl because the more honestly he is attached to his opinions, the more mischievous he is. Looking back now, with the light of the last year's events, what rubbish all the stuff which these great reformers used to talk about incidence of taxation, unearned increment, and all the rest of it, appears ! Anyone reading their speeches now, would imagine that they had never lived m the country, concerning the affairs of which they dogmatised so glibly and so positively. The land tax, indeed, was really the outcome of Mr Stout's passion for reading Reviews, more than of any practical knowledgeof the subject that he possessed. It was imposed, not because experience of the first twenty-five years of constitutional government m New Zealand showed it to be necessary ; but because certain English and American writers on political economy had advocated something of the kind. It seems ridiculous to say that the widespread annoyance, expense and anxiety, t to which the settlers m this colony are now being subjected, are the result of an ■ obscure American lawyer having written a catch-penny book. Tet, if the manner m which Mr Stout brought forward the land tax, and justified its introduction, were examined, it -would be found that such a summing-up of the matter is almost as true as it is epigrammatical. No one, we are convinced, — unless it be Mr Stout himself — now believes that there was any necessity for the land tax, or that it would not have been much better to leave things as they -were. The very authors of the land tax, indeed, if they know anything of what is going on, must admit that its operation is both burdensome and costly, out of all proportion to the amount of revenue to be derived from it. They, however, look at it from a peculiar point of view. In their eyes it is not so much an instrument of raising' revenue, as a means of embarrassing the freehold or pastoral tenure of land. They recognise to some extent, no doubt, the

present waste, and the constant disor- 1 ganisation which it causes ; but their contention is that, though the country may suffer, the principle is a sound one. and m the end — perhaps a few centuries hence — will work out its own justification. They forget, or rather they refuse to bear m mind, that the treatises from which they derived their notions about taxation, contemplated a totally different structure of society, and a totally different set of circumstances from ours; and they leave out of consideration the all-important fact that many of the essential conditions which led their authorities, as they call them, to their conclusions, are totally wanting here. The single circumstance that the Crown iB [still incomparably the largest landowner m the country, is sufficient m itself to upset the whole fabric of their theories ; whilst every conspicuous feature of the existing state of settlement m the country, aids m their demolition. In Great Britain, where the Crown holds no land, or at all events has none to sell, and where the tenure of land is mainly an outgrowth of feudal institutions, a land tax may be right enough. There the landowner pays a tax, not m consideration of the profit which lie makes out of the land, but m consideration of the status and influence which attach to its possession. Land, m fact, is not m Great Britain, a commodity, as it is here. It is the exclusive attribute of a wealthy, privileged and very limited class, instead of being, as it is here, the first and commonest form of property amongst all classes alike. One of the strongest, if not the very strongest, inducement, m fact, to settle m a new country, is the ease with which land can be acquired, and the profit arising from its cultivation. The extension of settlement is admitted on all sides to be the greatest desideratum m a new country. Tet, at this early stage, when not one hundredth part of the country is settled, those who style themselves liberal politicians, have succeeded m establishing a tax which must prove a serious check to settlement. It is impossible to ascertain to what extent the land tax has already had this effect ; but we have the moat incontestable proof that it has had a very considerable effect. We know that large sums of money which were ready to be invested on mortgage m this colony — which is an indirect way of promoting settlement — have been withdrawn solely on account of the land tax ; and we know that many who had intended to buy land here, and work it on a large scale, have been frightened away by the land tax. Quite recently we saw a letter from a man of capital at Home, who has for years had extensive connections m New Zealand, and who had made arrangements for putting out a great deal of money here this year, partly by loan, and partly m the purchase of land with a view to settlement. In that letter he explained to his friends here, his reason for changing his plans. It simply was that the land tax bad completely altered the character of New Zealand investments. He added that, though the present rate of the tax might not be sufficient m itself to deter investoi's, there was no guarantee that it would not be raised to a ruinous amount ; and he concluded by saying that though he thought as well of New Zealand as ever, he should wait and see how things went on, before he ventured any more money here. The person who wrote thus is a good friend to the colony, and would have made an invaluable settler. His feeling aboufr the colony, though, is as we have seen ; and we know that his opinions will be accepted implicitly by a great many more of his class. The great cry at working men's meetings just now is, " Why do not the Government bring out men of capital ? Why do they only bring out laborers, or men who have no money for the employment of labor ?" We can answer those questions very easily. The Government are a Liberal Government, a Working Men's Government, a Land for the People Government ; and they are doing all m their power to prevent men of capital from coming to the country, or being m a position to employ labor if they come. If cany act of a Government could produce a real and lasting lack of employment m this country, the land tax will have that effect. If the avowed intention of Sir George Grey and his colleagues to raise the amount of the tax, and to place it on a progressive scale, according to the value of the holding, is carried out, one of two things will certainly follow. Either great numbers of laborers will be thrown out of employment who are now very profitably and comfortably employed ; or else the rate of wages and the terms of employment will undergo a great change to the disadvantage of the laborer's. The tax m fact, though ostensibly levied on a class, will be distributed over all the other classes who are dependent for their welfare upon the prosperity of that class. In short, the land tax is an enemy to the outlay of capital m any form of settlement ; and we quite expect to see results accrue from it which will yet startle even those who have hitherto been amongst its warmest advocates. We have at present only arrived at the preliminary stages of its administration; but before many months are over, the public will be m a better position than they are now m to appreciate the merits of liberal government and class taxation.