B.—l.

20. That the property-tax should be altered so as to effect a compromise between its advocates and the advocates for a land-tax and income-tax, and that for this year it shall be fixed at fd. 21. That we should pay off £50,000 at least of the £150,000-deficiency of 1883-84. 22. That, after that provision, the provision for subsidies to local bodies, and for the increased cost of defence and education, a surplus of £32,000 will remain, which will be subject to reduction by supplementary votes. 23. That we should not allow the favour in which our loans are held in the London market to induce us to borrow more than we consider to be wise. 24. That we should endeavour to fall into a system under which we should reduce borrowing for indiscriminate purposes. 25. That we should have three classes of railways in future: Main Trunk, District, and Forest Bailways ; the last to be charged to the State Forests, and half the annual charge of the District Bailways to be borne by the districts benefited. 26. That the expenditure upon permanent defence should be charged to loan. 27. That we should authorize a loan for one million, to be issued next year, to serve up to the end of the financial year 1886-87 ; that £250,000 of this loan should be for defence, £50,000 for immigration, £200,000 for roads and bridges, £100,000 for the purchase of Native land, and £400,000 for railways. 28. That we attach great importance to giving sufficient inducements to private capitalists to construct the East and West Coast and Nelson Bailway. 29. That, to meet the demand for cheaper money for land improvements and for loans to local bodies, we will submit a Mortgage Debenture Bill, which will embody the system which has been found to work advantageously in Great Britain, without entailing any liability on the State. Let me, in conclusion, say that I am sensible I have had to communicate most important views and proposals to the Committee. Probably I have not done so in felicitous language, but I stand in the justice and generosity of the Committee, and I ask honourable members not to take heed of faults of expression, but to consider the proposals I have submitted from the highest standpoint. lam far from deprecating the lines of party, but there are some subjects that may with advantage be considered with a temporary emancipation from party obligations. At any rate, the Committee will do justice to my desire to place before honourable members, free from all acerbity, views which I conscientiously believe are worthy of their consideration in the interests of the colony. I have the honour to move the following Besolutions: — Resolved, That in lieu of the duties of Customs now charged on the undermentioned articles, the following duties of Customs shall, on and after the twentieth day of June, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-five, be charged thereon on importation into New Zealand, or on being cleared from any warehouse for home consumption, namely : —-

XIX