A HINT FOR THE COLONIAL TREASURER.

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 184, 6 August 1890, Page 8

A HINT FOR THE COLONIAL TREASURER.

(To the Editor.

Sir,—Our Treasurer has for Borne time been puzzling his head as bo how he could contrive to screw a libtlo more baxation out of bhe people. I propose to give him a hinb by which he can acquire this much-desired result in a perfecbly legal manner, # It. occurred to me on finding I had to pay eight shillings and fivepence for bwo or bhree little articles of wearing apparel which my children's grandmother had kindly made for them, and sent oub to them by parcel post. The postal ticket affixed to the

parcel asserted thab the actual mercantile value of the contents iwas £1 15s 4d. No doubt this was the "exact cost of the material of which the things were composed. The old lady who sent them did not charge for the making—no doubb thab with her was a labour of love.

The Customs authorities, however, discovered the omission, and clapped on another five shillings, charging me eight shillings and fivepence on the grand total. This seems to me to look very much like barefaced robbery. Of course taxes musb be raised from some source ; bub surely to tax a presenb intrinsically worth £1 15s in the large amounb of 8s od is rabher too stiff.

My hint to Sir Harry Atkinson is this: There are a large number of letters arriving in New Zealand every mail containing remittances from friends an Home to impecunious relatives oub here. Leb him, subject to a penalby of tobal confiscabion, cause all letters so containing money to have stamped outside of the envelope the value of bho contenbs, and subjecb, of course, to the privilege of opening bhem; if fraud is anticipated, leb him order bwenby-five per cent, or jusb one quarber of bhe amounb so forwarded bo be banded bo the public treasury by any one receiving such letters. He would be quite as much jusbified in doing this (for these remittances are most of them presents in cash instead of in kind) as he is in deducting one-fourth of the value of necessary articles, which the receivers are too poor to provide for themselves.—l am, etc.. One Who Objects to be Robbed. P.S.—lb has occurred to me thab if bhe exbra 5s charged above really in bhe opinion of the Customs anbhoribies represenba bhe value of bhe labour employed in bhe manufacture of them, are the Cusboms entitled to bhe whole amounb? Should nob this "fair earning," so to speak, be remitted back to the old lady 1 . .-.. ■■~.&#s&■