Ever since the Ministerial proposals I for the reform of the system of taxa tion were formulated the Opposition press has endeavored by its usual unscrupulous distortion of facts and figures to get the farmers to believe that they were .to be the victims of oppressive burdens, that they would be taxed to three or four times their previous amount, that they were to be sacrificed for the benefit of the business meirof the towns, and, m short, that it would be impossible for them to exist under the Liberal taxation system. The figures concocted m support of these allegations have been swallowed by that class to which the very name of Liberalism is as a red | rag to a mad bull, and by Chambers of j Commerce, many of the Agricultural i and Pastoral .Associations, the mis named "Farmers'" Co-operative As sociation, and some other institutions. These bodies, though composed of, or at anyrate ruled by, capitalists and large Landowners, have not scrupled to speak m the name of the whole community, and have carried resolu tions based upon the figures of i their own journalistic guides, which J have been duly published and for | warded to the Government or to sympathising Parliamentary represen tatives. Parliamentary opponents to I the measure have been less bold. In the House both sides are heard ; out of it people, by reading only the news papers that pander to their prejudices, and not taking the trouble to enquire into the subject for themselves, see only one side, and are misled accord ingly. The statement that the pro posed taxation would press unduly upon* the small farmers was certainly made m the House, by Mr Wilson (of Palmerston) find possibly by others, but prompt contradiction came from those gentlemen's own side of the House. In fact so utterly untenable was the statement, that the Opposition at once rushed into the opposite line of criticism, and declared that :the small farmers were unduly favored— that the Bill would relieve them from taxation altogether. The definition of small farms is not given by any of these critics. We will take, by way of example, a farm of 100 acres, worth with improvements £2000, of which the- improvements and stock would probably • be: worth one-half of that amount. The Opposition newspapers say this man would be taxed £8 6s 8d annually. 