Chapter II. Taxation of Workers, and Freedom of Real and Personal Estates.

The Tariff is not protection, and it is a heavy burden on work. The political ignorance shewn at the last adjustment by Sir J. V. of the New Zealand Tariff is so great as hardly to be believed. I have now to establish the fact that the workers have been paying the interest on Railways while those landowners, and foreign firms who get all the benefit pay nothing; but worse has to come.

A dissection of the Tariff gives the following blunders by which we are prevented from starting Colonial Industries :—

Steel, 1s. per cwt.—The machinery made from it, free

Leather, ½d. and 1d. per 1b.—Goods made from it, 10 per cent. Axles, arms and boxes, 10 per cent.—Some goods made from them, free.

Tools, 10 per cent.—Some goods made of them, free.

The following blunders as raising the price of wages and preventing Colonial production—such are necessaries of Life or Trade not manufactured here:— page 10

• Arrowroot, ½ or 10 per cent.
• Baking Powder, 10 per cent.
• Bellows, 10 per cent.
• Blacking, 10 per cent.
• Brushes
• Buckets
• Cement Plaster
• Chocolate
• Cocoa
• Coffee
• Combs
• Cotton Goods
• Drapery
• Glass
• Hemp Goods
• Hardware
• Holloware
• Horseshoes
• Lamps
• Lasts
• Leadpipe
• Linen Goods
• Maccaroni
• Maizena
• Millinery
• Nails
• Oils
• Paper, writing, bags, wrapps Paints
• Pearl Barley, Peas, Pepper
• Pitcn
• Rice
• Rope
• Saltpetre
• Starch Blue
• Stationery, Account Books
• Steel
• Sulphur
• Shingles, Palings
• Tea, 6d. per 1b.
• Tacks
• Tar
• Tapioca
• Tartaric Acid
• Tools
• Twine
• Turpentine
• Varnish
• Vermicelli
• Vinegar
• Whiting
• Woodware
• Zinc

How can the workers work their work if the food, clothes, and tools are all taxed, while the rich by absenteeism escape, and also while goods made elsewhere are positively admitted free of duty—thus we punish ourselves twice over, once by preventing the men from making goods, twice by letting foreigners enter goods free.

The alteration of the Tariff on these, if supplemented by an excise on beer and spirits, would be possible.

There is not a farthing paid for landed or personal property towards the Government of this nation.

There are 12,500,000 acres sold, which were valued by Mr. Woolcock at £2 per acre, £25,000,000; but it is surely worth £5 per acre, much of it is worth £20 and £25 per acre.

So we have 8,000,000 held by 112 people at £5—£40,000,000. About 5,000,000 held by others at £5—£25,000,000.

Now the interest on Railways should be made to fall partly on these because they really receive the whole value—yet no tax is levied on these; while by a strange infatuation the Prime Minister actually wants to charge the fresh purchasers of distant lands with the whole interest on the cost of Railways, and so to page 11 deprive them of the power to make roads and bridges. Quatenus, heu nefas! The personal estate, consisting of foreign companies, banks, long leaseholds, foreign firms, interest of mortgage loans, &c., &c., say seventy millions, escapes taxation.

But taxes Nos. 3, 5, and 6 need not be put on at present unless we fail to raise another two millions.

You will be astonished to see that in New Zealand (1) the persons holding property to the value of £135,000,000 having got the representation of the people into their hands have so arranged matters as to pay no taxes at all on their property.

2. That the working men enumerated there—from servants up to the judges—pay nearly all the taxes, while rich absentees pay nothing at all.

3. That an immense amount of capital trades here making 15 and 20 per cent., and pays nothing at all.

4. That I propose a heavy tax on these who, through the painful ignorance of Sir J. Vogel and the Ministry, have taken millions of our money without paying towards our Government, but in the statement I have shown the drones who' don't pay.

5. To the eternal disgrace of the Philosophical Institute of New Zealand they have paid more attention to beetles than to men, and there are no proper statistics of New Zealand for future historians.

6. Instead of the profit on Railways, stated by the Hon. H. Atkinson, there is a dreadful loss of over £450,000 the year; but the worst is that this heavy sum, though paid by workers, is positively all put in the value of the country estates who pay positively nothing at all to the Interest on Railways—hence the loss should be charged by means of income and property tax on those who get the benefit of it.

7. Instead of a surplus on the year there is a deficit of £145,000; besides the other amounts entered altogether making £563,881 1s. 8d.; and there are Provincial Liabilities out £259,556. Present deficit, £823,433 1s. 8d. This has been covered up by bills and loans and overdrafts, as appears in the Sketch Budget.