The Coming Election.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2098, 29 July 1887, Page 2

The Coming Election.

To the Editor of the Standard.

Sib,—Would you kindly allsw mo apace in the columns of your paper to express my views as a working man on the forthcoming election. One of our candidates, Mr Bunny, would take the duty off tea and sugar, and to make up the deficiency it would cause in the revenue Mr Bunny would tax the land, I am surprised at gentlemen of Mr Bunny’s political acumen propounding such an impractical scheme in the present state of the finances of the colony. And suppose Mr Bunny could accomplish this transfer of taxation to the land, what effect would it have on the working men of the colony. I do not think it would benefit them the least; I believe it would do them harm, for it would greatly diminish the employing power of the laud holders, which would cause a far greater scarcity of employment than at present. If a working man could buy a pound of tea for fid, and » pound of sugar for Id, what would it avail them if he could not find employment to earn that small sum to buy it with.

Ab a working man I am convinced that all members of the community ought to boar a fail' share of the taxation of the country, and 1 do not think that the present tax on tea and sugar is unfair; both of these are cheaper now than they wore years ago, when wages were no better than now, and the working man had to pay for the education of his children out of his wages. I think the Property Tax ought to be altered to a sliding scale so as to make a person who is worth £6OOO pay more per thousand than a person who is only worth £IOOO, and so on, pro rata. If this method was adopted 1 think it would not be an unfair mode of taxation.

I suppose that most working men are aware that all our wealth comes from the land, and to tax it any more at present would be simply ruinous to the working man. It would drive people away from the country who have got money, and would buy laud and employ labor. It would also stop capital from coming into the country which would employ labor. As working men of New Zealand we ought to be proud of its present laud laws. I don’t think there is bettor in any of the colonies for a working man. He can either lease, get on deferred payment, or buy a piece of land ou very moderate terms, and if he saves his earnings and uses economy and frugality he] soon will be able to get a piece of land of his own, and in future years he may attain to the highest honor in the land by becoming a representative of the people in Parliament. A great many of our working men, like some of our poll, ticiaus, are both extravagant and improvident, and are to apt to sacrifice the happiness of the future for the apparent pleasure of the present. The extravagant workman injures himself and his family, if he has got one; but the extravagant politician injures the whole community, aud is a curse to the country he lives in. He goes about setting class against class and protending to be the working man’s champion, to delude him and get his vote; but if ho should get into Parliament ho would soon forget the working man; he would sanction enormous borrowing, extravagant expenditure, and secure himself a nice billet with a large salary —and the people and the country may all go bankrupt after he is done with them for all he cares. Aud those are the sort of men, I am sorry to say, that often got the working men’s votes. As a working man, 1 would appeal to all working men in New Zealand for their own and then- children’s sake, not to vote for such men, or put them in jiower; but vote for truthful, honest, earnest, conscientious men, who have a knowledge of the wants of the country. These are the sort of men who will make just aud equitable laws for all. No matter if you choose them from the richest in the laud, or from amongst your own working class. They are the men to whom you may entrust the welfare of yourselves aud your country to, aud with God’s help aud with such men to rule us, we would soon | emerge from that terrible cloud of depression which has surrounded us so long

lam, &c., A Wokking Mas Martiuborough, July