Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 29

1. Taxes On Food

page 17

1. Taxes On Food.

A tax on imported articles of food that may be grown in New Zealand, raises the price of those articles to the consumer, and brings more income, as expressed in pounds, shillings, and pence, to the producer. But it is unjust that one class should continue to suffer so grievous a burden as dearer food than might be had if the tax were abolished, even though the producer should really be deprived of some of his gains by abolishing the duty.

These articles of food have been already enumerated. Tea, sugar, coffee, chocolate and cocoa, arrowroot, sago, tapioca, curry, pepper and spices, preserved ginger, olive oil, and nuts, are not produced in New Zealand, and therefore the retention of the duty on them cannot be defended as protective.

Rice, and some other articles coming under the general description of farinaceous food, are not grown in New Zealand: but their consumption tends to reduce the demand for food made from grain grown in New Zealand. They must therefore, be considered as articles for whose taxation the protective defence may be raised.

All taxes on other grain, pulse &c., whether manufactured or not, are duties directly protective of the New Zealand food-grower.

So are the duties on preserved meat, fish, butter, cheese, hams and bacon, chicory, vinegar, gelatine, jams, jellies, and marmalades, mustard, some sauces, pickles, and syrups: because these articles can be made in New Zealand.

It is worth notice, though, that the high price of sugar, caused by the very high duty on it—aided, no doubt, by the cruel dearness of fuel, in consequence of railway mismanagement—protects the produce of neighbouring colonies against our own.

New Zealand abounds with fruit of the kinds from which homely jams and jellies are made. The soil and climate are excellently adapted for its growth, and the latter for its preparation and keeping. Yet, strange to say, there was imported into New Zealand in 1876, a quantity of "jams and jellies" valued at £35,761; of which £21,796 worth was from Tasmania, and £4,789 worth from Victoria! In tins, and much of it dry and tasteless, compared with the fresh produce of yearly housekeeping and gardening economy. All over New Zealand may be seen neglected gardens, with gooseberry and currant bushes, plum and peach trees, running wild, in places where much of the tinned article is consumed, although it paid duty in 1876 to the amount of £3,588. You may talk about giving women a vote. If the children had votes, surely there would be no taxes on rice or sugar; and railway favouritism to keep cheap coal out of the market would be destroyed by the infantry of public works, anxious for abundance of cheap confectionery and preserves.