90 Time/tri. 



they could not take on all that and not increase taxation. For his own 

 part, he would answer the question in the affirmative if it was a question 

 of gradual development. The Chairman mentioned that there were such 

 things as narrow economies, and referred to the time when Sir Alexander 

 Swettenham was here and enforced certain retrenchment which he said 

 led to disastrous results in one department. But the fact was on record 

 that in one year while he was here the expenditure of the colony was 

 under 82,500,000. This year they should be spending very nearly 

 $3,000,000. a difference of about $500,000 more being spent now than 

 in those days, so that it could not be said very substantial economies could 

 not be effected ; he was quite satisfied that they could be. They had a 

 highly elaborate Government system which was in his opinion far too 

 good for the place. As an instance, he would mention just one thing. 

 In almost every portion of the colony there was a doctor, magistrate, 

 immigration agent, police inspector, and commissary. In other coun- 

 tries — he thought His Excellency would bear him out — most of these 

 duties were undertaken by what was known as a district commissioner. 

 Such a thing he had no doubt, cou'd be established here and would save 

 employing four men to do what one man could do perhaps. He got 

 most disliked in the Combined Court for suggesting that a good deal 

 might be knocked off the medical department not in the way of sanitation 

 or the money being spent on improvements to save child life and so 

 forth, but there were many ways in which he thought the service w .s 

 run too extravagantly. Economies could be effected, and supposing they 

 only managed to economise to the extent of half that $500,000, there 

 they were, the thing was done. With a saving of the difference he 

 pointed out between the expenditure at the time he referred to and now, 

 a large amount of capital would be raised to do gradual development 

 with. One of the best forms of development was to induce people to 

 come and settle in the colony. They wanted to increase the people in 

 the place. The population was a miserably small one and they could not 

 go on piling up the cost of carrying on the colony on the backs of those 

 few people here. If there was double the number the colony would be 

 doubly prosperous. His own belief was that if a scheme could be 

 worke i out and surely it could be, by which the Government assisted in 

 introducing thousands and thousands of people, development would come 

 of its own accord. They would not then want to think about raising 

 taxation. 



Working Man's Paradise. 



He did not think Mr. Woolford had looked up the statistics as 

 regards the cost of taxation on the submerged tenth. If he did, he 

 would find that the Customs duties paid by the working classes were 

 very small. He would be surprised to find how much per head was 

 paid by each labouring man. He was wrong in stating that taxation 

 there was oppressive on the contrary, he thought everybody would admit 

 it was rather a paradise for the working man. The question of develop- 

 ment was a very big one, consequently he was surprised to find that 



