FIJI NEWS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 17, 20 January 1916, Page 7

FIJI NEWS.

EXPORT DUTY ON SUGAR. i A cablegram received in Suva, on the ! 12th January, intimated that the day ! previous the 2nd Fiji Contingent, which, • for some, months has been in training in i England, had gone to France. Com- ■ munications received three -weeks ear- ;' lier revealed that the contingent ■>_s | then under orders to proceed to Serbia, jand went as far as London to entrain; j but "their train" did not turn up, and ! the men returned to camp at Sheerneea, I much disappointed. However, the forty i successors to the gallant fifty who were | wiped out at Ypres will be in' the • trenches now, doubtless vowing ven|geance. : EXPORT DUTY ON SUGAR. ! At the request of the .Secretary of IState, who expressed the opinion: "The | sugar industry is not bearing its full share in the burden due to the war," the Acting-Governor introduced into the Legislative Council. at its sitting on the 10th inst., a bill providing for the i imposition of a duty of 5/ per ton on all i sugar exported. At the request of country membcre, who had not had time jto consult their constituents, the second Tcading of the bill was deferred for a pionth, on the understanding -that when adopted it would come into operation from January Ist last. That the bill will become law is a foregone ' conclusion unless, in the interim, the Govern--ment gives way to the growing feeling in favour of an income tax. It is one of the interesting peculiarities of Fiji that its taxation is a generation behind the times; there is no income tax, no land tax, no mortgage tax, and an absence of many other taxes to which people of other "less favoured" lands have become quite accustomed; taxation is confined almost exclusively to the Customs and excise dt'.tica, so that the individual who spends all his income, £5 i per week, contributes »a much to the country revenue as the fortunate individual who spends only £5 a week out !of -his income of £100 per week. However, the Government being urgently in I need of funds to carry on the harbour works, and the income tax promising no I immediate relief, it Beams very probable I that the sugar duty will come into existence; in which event the sugar companI les and the sugar planters will have the privilege of being specially singled .out I for war taxation. Naturally the banana planters, copra growers, cattle •raisers, and merchants are smiling; it remains to be seen whether their smiles will continue. It is not known yet how the duty will affect the planters, but as the Colonial Sugar Company and the Penang Company are paying the planters a war bonus of 2/6 per ton of cane (equal to £1 per ton of sugar), it is very likely that they will pass on a proportion of the burden to the planters. The ActingGovernor, in introducing the bill, remarked tbat if the companies passed on the whole of the duty to the .planters they could not equitably reduce their bonus by more than 7Jd. per ton of cane, He hoped they would never reduce the bonus to less than 2/.

I PERSONAL EMOLUMENTS. The paucity of loan money, and the cutting down of the estimates for new I roads and bridges, provoked a bitter debate in the Legislative Council on the 10th inst. The Hon. Hedstrom led off the attack with a budget of figures, showing that since 1910 the expenditure on public works, including maintenance, had dropped from 26.9 per cent of the total expenditure in 1910, to 13.1 per cent of the total expenditure in' 1816 (estimates); whereas, in the same period the personal emoluments of the civil service had increased from 34.5 per cent to 41.6 of the total expenditure; out of a total estimated expenditure of £2884,----210 for 1916 no less a sum than £118;373 was for personal emoluments. Mr. Hedstrom described this as a-crushing indictment of the administration of Fiji, and with this most of the elected members agreed, the _on. Crompton describing the conditions of affairs -as " a disgrace, after forty years of British control." The dei bate concluded with some free exchanges between his Excellency and the Hon. Hedstrom aitd Hon. Crompton, the latter interpreting certain remarks of the Act-ing-Governor to mean that they were "playing to the gallery," a construction that his ExceUe_j^^ettedjtadJ*7 ipridiatctL *. j .y* "* . -x.'f ' *';£i™Yr