A LAND TAX.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume 3, Issue 190, 30 June 1874, Page 2

A LAND TAX.

A Me Swan. in the Auckland Provin cial Council, has carried a resolution in favor of taxing the whole of the lands of that Province, at a uniform rate of a lialfjienpy an acre. It is estimated that (his tax, if imposed, would yield more than £IO,OOO a year; and the Southern Cross observes that in the dearth of revenue available f«r Provincial purposes it is not remarkable that a vision of thousands so easily obtained should have somewhat dazzled the minds of the Council. That journal, however, feels confident that no such tax will ever be imposed for general purposes, and still loss for the purpose of supporting Provincial Institutions. When it comes to this, or to anything like this, no section of the community would any longer desire to see those institutions maintained. But, the Cross remarks, and they are remarks which possess more than ordinary significance at the present moment, that be does not think it will be left to the Provincial Government to impose a property tax for such purposes as these, and intimates that the demand made on the general revenue by the loans contracted are annually increasing, and that these cannot always be met out of Customs revenue. This confirms the view we have taken in our leader ot to-day, and is an indication that a property tax is one of the measures which is forcing itself at last on tbo consideration of the Government. “No more reasonable cau*e for an impost upon lauded property could be found,” lays tne Cross, “than the necessity tor paying interest and sinking fond on the loans expended on works to improve the value of landed property throughout the Colony." It will be seen that this is precisely the view we have taken on the subject; but we have always contended that such a tax should have constituted an integral part of the Public Works Policy. The owners of, landed property ought not to have been permitted tbo enjoyment of the one without being burdened with the other. The imposition of such a tax, in the first instance, instead of being delayed until now, would have rendered the public more wide awake as to the way our large loans have been expended than has been the case under the existing vicious system; and we called Mr Vogel’s attention to this important point when his policy was first announced to the public, though possibly, as a member of the Government, this of itself was felt by him a sufficient reason against the adoption of the course recommended; A wide awake public is not one of the things, which is held roost in estimation by Colonial administrations.