Conditions in the Group
To The Editor
Sir: I have read with interest an article from your Tongan Correspondent, which appeared in your issue of Sept. 16, but I fail to appreciate the points he wishes to impress upon your readers.
Commenting upon taxation, he asserts the native pays to the Government 36/- per an num poll tax. The Treasurer estimates he will receive from this source £12,000 this cur rent year. This means there are some 6,600 taxpayers in the kingdom, and, as he esti mates the expenditure for the year will be £84,555, your correspondent does not state where the difference (£72,555) is to come from.
Your correspondent quotes a “typical case” of native contentment, which appears to me as if he wishes your readers to believe that many of the taxpayers enjoy this content ment, and that Tonga is a very happy and prosperous land. He does not mention that hundreds of taxpayers do not possess land, nor anything of the hundreds who have land which produces little, if anything. I have been in the kingdom for many years, but I have not yet met any native situated as your correspondent’s “typical case.”
Commenting upon the banana industry, your correspondent states “Bananas is a catch crop that may yet be the salvation of Tonga.”
What does he mean? If Tonga is full of his “typical cases” it needs no salvation.
A further statement he makes in his letter Is “The Government Executive asked Parlia ment to grant relief by abolishing the horse tax, 4/-; dog tax. 1/-; and town tax, 4/-.
This was done, but he does not inform your readers that Parliament Increased the amount of personal emoluments by £3,756.
For the past three years, much controversy has taken place regarding taxation and the cost of administration, opinions differing therefore, to enable your readers to figure the matter out for themselves, I would state: The population of Tonga is approximately 26,000. The sources of income are copra, in terest on investments, and several minor ones.
The Government estimate that 16,000 tons of copra will be exported this current year. The value of this copra to the native, computed on the basis of the average price paid to him on Tongatabu for the past two years, is £192,000. This includes 20/- export duty he does pay to the Government indirectly—to day’s value is £48,000, less interest on in vestments brings in £7,800, and if we assess the amount of public money expended in so cial services in the country, together with the receipts from minor sources at £40,000 we get a total of £239,800. May we not take this as the income of the Kingdom? An average of £9 per head of population.
How The Income Is Expended
The Treasurer estimates the expenditure for the year at £84,555, being 35 per cent, of the income, or on to-day’s value of copra to the native, 48 per cent. The expenditure is clas sified as: Personal emoluments .. .. £45,913 Public works £ 16,494 Other charges £22,148 Total £84,555 Of personal emoluments the European offi cers and pensioners, 51 of them absorb £20,459, an average cost per head of popu lation 15/8; native officials absorb £25,454.
Administration of law, gaols and police costs, £ 11,634 —9/- per head of population—educa tion, £7,100; medical, £7,377; and other pay ments, which include nat.ve salaries, £37,985.
This amounts to 29/2 per head of population.
The Treasurer estimates he will receive from import dues £23,500 during the current year.
At tariff rates the value of the imports wil be approximately £190,000. As European re quirements are not one-tenth of this, it is ob vious that the native requires things that he cannot get off his allotment, and on these requirements, such as wearing apparel, tools, drays, harness, etc., he is taxed to the extent of 12½ per cent, import duty. After satis fying his Government, there is hardly any thing left to buy other things he may want.
Revenues of Governments to meet their ex penditure are raised from taxation direct and indirect. Whilst the European in this coun try has no direct taxation, he contributes a full quota by indirect taxation, viz.; the duties imposed on practically all that he eats, drinks, smokes, wears and uses. But as there are but a few of them, the great bulk of the revenue must of necessity come from the native; and his present position shows that the expend ture in relation to the income of the kingdom is excessive, and at the present time altogether too heavy for him to stand up to unless he 1 to be regarded in the nature of a beast of burden.
Recently, a full meeting of the Tonga Cham ber of Commerce was held, at which the fol lowing resolution was unanimously carried: “That in view of the marked decline in the national income of the Kingdom of Tonga through the heavy and probably per manent fall in the price of copra, and in view of the impoverished condition of the Tongan people and the great restriction of trade as a consequence, this Chamber re gards with surprise and alarm the continual heavy expenditure by the Tongan Govern ment, with its undue pressure upon the people, and recommends as the only proper and prudent course, a drastic reduction to expenditure in all departments.”
Yours, etc.,