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: I must distinctly say that the Memorialists do not represent all the Colony nor even those residents who now pay more than half the Revenue of the Colony, for the Asiatic residents pay 4/7ths of the existing ordinary Revenue. I have moreover received urgent remonstrances from several gentlemen whom the Memorialists say they represent, declaring the proposed Duty the fairest to the poorer class of European Householders, and protesting against what they somewhat unceremoniously call the "selfish effort" of the Memorialists to roll a burden from themselves and their principals, without caring who may have to bear it, provided it falls from their own shoulders.
I will admit to the fullest degree the weight due to the position and individual intelligence of the leading Memorialists. And I further admit that it would be difficult to find so liberal and intelligent a Community as this in proportion to its numbers. Nevertheless, I can recognize a Merchant's or Banker's experience and intelligence without being surprised if he becomes suddenly incapable of seeing the wisdom of forcing his class to pay a percentage towards the Public exigencies. Therefore, I think the policy of such a tax, as the Stamp Duty, can be more fairly decided otherwise than by taking the votes on such a subject of the very persons who expect to pay the greater portion of it.
It is unquestionably a Duty levied on the general business transactions of the Colony—which may be said to comprise, in round numbers, including dealings with land, Bills of Lading and Exchange, &c., &c., transactions representing annually some 120 millions of Dollars. It is true that the tax is intended to be extremely light, not even one per mil, whilst much of that will fall on absent parties interested in and deriving profits from those transactions but otherwise in no way contributing to the expenses of the place. Nevertheless, small as that amount may be, those who have the largest transactions will have to pay the largest proportion, and I do not hesitate to assert that it is evidently right and just they should do so here as they do at Singapore.
Still, if any better mode of repairing our financial position had been suggested, I was always ready to give it the most favorable consideration, because even an unreasonable repugnance to a just and necessary measure should at times have some weight with a Government.
Yet what alternative I ask has been suggested? Procrastination and a temporary loan—as though, when we are already paying our way, as I have shown, with borrowed money, it is not high time to devise means rather for repaying such debt than for borrowing more.
That was one plan—another was to throw the cost of various Public Works on the House Rates. That, say the Memorialists, "has hitherto been the wise and prudent course of Legislation," and "all previous Legislation has been in accordance with their Convictions," &c.
Let us follow up this reasoning, and see where it would lead. When Legislation first commenced here, Rates were unknown. As money was wanted, houses were subsequently taxed. At first lightly, and subsequently more heavily till now the Rates amount to 12 per cent on the rental. Therefore say the Memorialists, Householders should now pay more because they already pay so much. Thus if "previous Legislation had gone on piling every burden on that one species of property till Rates amounted to fifty per cent, we should, according to the Memorialists, have all the stronger argument for raising them still higher.
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I confess I should argue in the reverse way that in proportion as there has been previous Legislation of that kind, the more it becomes the duty of the Government to devise some fresh scheme for raising the necessary supplies instead of unfairly laying every new burden on one species of property. Throwing everything on the House Rates would really make scarcely any perceptible difference to the leading firms, but it would make a very sensible and painful difference to a class of persons who find it already very difficult to procure suitable or healthy abodes, and I would give to that consideration in this climate greater weight than in Europe.
But, say the Memorialists and my protesting friends, a Reservoir should be met by a Water Rate, and the cost of the Gun-boat by an increased Police Rate. If it were so, I think it would be soon necessary to raise those rates in some other than the old way—but I deny that the cost of a great Public work like the contemplated Reservoir should be thrown on the Householders alone. In the first place, it is notorious that the existing Water Rates have been paid by numbers without receiving the supply to which they were entitled, and I scarcely see why, now that we propose to give the promised supply, we should demand additional payment. 2ndly.—One main reason for increasing the supply is to ensure the means of cleansing the Chinese portion of the Town—and this, it must be frankly owned, is done more from sanitary reasons affecting the general Community than from a regard to the interest of the Chinese, who would prefer living in their ordinary indifference to cleanliness if we were to permit it. We know, however, that yellow fever and cholera produced in the Chinese quarter may spread to the European quarter—and we endeavor, therefore, for our own safety to purify the abodes of our neighbors.
As for the gun-boat, if H.M. Government be still disposed to continue their liberal offer of such a vessel, it would be for the purpose of enabling the Colony to perform its duties as a separate State better than heretofore,—duties which involve a surveillance over the neighboring waters and the prevention of any part of the Colony being made a rendezvous and place of equipment for Pirates. The cost, whether large or small, of discharging that duty should evidently be borne by the General Revenue and not by each Householder, as though he were contributing to the expense of the Police for patrolling his street. Finally, as to this question of increasing the Rates, I would remind the Council that at a Public Meeting in August 1864, consisting of nearly the very same persons who attended the recent Meeting—an address to the Secretary of State was voted protesting against the Military Contribution, and one of the leading arguments in that address was the poverty of the Chinese residents, who were represented some to be "quite beyond the pale of taxation," and the majority of the rest to be only artisans or "small shopkeepers in a way of business far from lucrative.”
I have already stated that this impoverished class contributes 4/7ths of the Colonial Revenue, and I may now inform you that although the European population paid $110,000 of this year's Rates, the Chinese had, up to the 25th August, paid no less than $94,000. Now it does seem inconsistent to have represented them two years ago as incapable of bearing the burden of taxation, and yet, when the object is to move that burden from the Europeans, to discover that doubling the Rates, to which the Chinese already contribute so heavily, would be a just and expedient measure. I think it would be well if each indignation Meeting, before endorsing any Memorial, were to refer to the records of its predecessor.
I may add that even the weak argument of the Chinese probably evading the provisions of a Stamp Ordinance is not borne out by experience.
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