H.—2

XLIX

April, and sitting again in Wellington until the 13th of the same month. Thence the Commissioners proceeded to visit other towns in the North Island, and arrived finally in Wellington on the Bth day of May instant. They have visited in the order named the following centres of population : Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Invercargill, Mataura, Oamaru, Waimate, Timaru, Ashhurton, Hokitika, Greymouth, Brunnerton, Westport, Nelson, Blenheim, Palmerston North, Marton, Wanganui, New Plymouth, Auckland, Thames, Hamilton West, and Napier. The Commission have travelled over three thousand miles, and in all 475 witnesses have appeared before them, whose evidence will be found appended to this report. In addressing themselves to the important duty confided to them hy your Excellency, the Commissioners have approached their task neither from the point of view of Protectionists nor from that of Free-traders, but, strictly in accordance with your Excellency's Commission, have endeavoured to ascertain wherein the existing tariff unduly presses upon the taxpaying public, and wherein it is possible to relieve that pressure by reducing the rates on certain articles, and also where inconsistencies in the tariff might be removed, and have sought to render these reductions financially possible by imposing countervailing increases on articles which may properly be classed as luxuries. During their investigations it has been abundantly proved that inconsistencies do exist in almost every department of the tariff to which the attention of the Commissioners has been directed. As will be seen by the printed evidence, from almost every part of the colony, and from all branches of trade, complaints have been received of difficulties of interpretation, and of alleged arbitrary classification of goods by Customhouse officers. By this it is not intended to convey that the officers have in any ' way exceeded their duty, the circumstances complained of having arisen from the frequent ambiguity of the tariff, and from the practical impossibility in many cases of distinguishing as between various classes of goods, and as to the rate under which such goods should be placed. The local Customhouse officers, in most cases, have given the benefit of any doubt in favour of the revenue by placing the goods in regard to which such doubt existed under the highest duty to which they could be subjected; but it would be more satisfactory, not only to the importers, but also to the officers themselves, that the onus of deciding points of this kind should be removed from the officers by the tariff being made clear and explicit. With this view, your Commissioners, in submitting an amended tariff, have endeavoured to avoid difference in rates as between goods which are either nearly identical or so closely approach one another as to be difficult of distinguishment. They have also endeavoured to make the rates of duty applicable to any one class of goods as few as possible ; and they think that the tariff as now submitted will largely attain this object. In travelling through the country there have been submitted to your Commissioners, almost necessarily, questions either altogether or in part outside the scope of your Excellency's Commission, and, not being authorised to make any recommendations on the matters referred to, they simply submit the evidence thereupon for the consideration of your Excellency's Advisers. The matters referred to will be found on pages of the printed evidence. They are as follows : — 1. The question of assistance to the mining industry in the only district (Auckland) in which gold duty is payable, as a countervail to the taxation through the Customs, which is alleged to press with especial severity upon the mining population. 2. The question of extending the trade of New Zealand amongst the islands of the Pacific, in connection with which subject evidence, supplemented by a map of proposed new steam routes, was given by Mr. Coleman Phillips, and will be found in the Appendix to this report. 3. The question of the valuation for taxation purposes of riparian rights. 4. The question of imposing a small ad valorem duty of, say, not exceeding 2| per cent, upon all goods otherwise free under the tariff, on the ground that all imports should pay a share of the cost of the Customs establishment. 5. The question of the advisableness of assisting the development of the mining industry by means of bonuses for prospecting. 6. The question of the desirability of absolutely excluding importations of Japanese furniture, on the ground that many of those articles are infested with a worm, which would be destructive to furniture manufactured of wood if it became established in this colony. 7. And the question of the prohibition of the importation of fruit-trees, on account of the cognate danger of the introduction of insect-pests and diseases new to this colony.

viii—H. 2.