POLITICAL GOSSIP.

Press, Volume XLVIII, Issue 7864, 15 May 1891, Page 5

POLITICAL GOSSIP.

[By Telegraph.]

(FROM OCR CORRESPONDENT.)

WELLINGTON, May 14* It is authoritatively stated that tha Government scheme for the change of the incidence of direct taxation will include—(l) A tax on tho unimproved value of land, with exemption up to £500; and (2) an income tax of 6d in the J3 on all incomes exceeding £500 per annum. Tlio Head Office statf of the GovernmenInsurance Department is being _ut down, and Messrs Knowles, Ludbrook, Uurr, Browne, Malcolm, Dunne and Fordham (all of whom are clerks in the Department) aro to be retired on compensation, which will amount to somowhero about -8700, while the saving in salaries will be a little over -SI2OO a year. It is stated that these dismiasahj comprise the entire changes contemplated in this office.

With the view of encouraging settlement on the land, five blocks of 500 to 1000 acres on the Catlin's River road are being laid off for special settlement, in the hope that the men engaged on the road works will thus be induced to settle permanently. A similar course will be adopted in other parts of the colony near road works.

As a great fuss has lately bean made about alleged instances of dummyism in the Wellington land district, it may be interesting to mention that at the meeting of the Land Board to-day the Chief Commissioner stated that although there were over a thousand settlers on the West Coast, the Ranger reported that he had been unable to detect more than two or three oases of supposed dummyism, and that all tho caa_t settlements were in a thoroughly healthy condition, m—Wing most B_tist_ctory pro* gress.

[PRESS ASSOCIATION TEL-O-Alf.] WELLINGTON, May Mt* Seven clerks in the head office of ths Government Life Insurance Department have been retrenched. Their salaries aggregate over .£IOOO, and the compensation to be paid them will amount to £700. It }a understood that no further retrenchment will be effected in this department. Mr H. M. Lee, Clerk of the Court at Leeston, has been appointed to take the place of Mr Sisson, deceased, in the Supreme Court office here.

The Government have arranged for five blocks of land on the Gatlin _ River railway, Otago, to be set apart for village settlement purposes, the probability being that the men engaged on the contract will tako up the land on the completion of the work. The surveyors in the Wairarapa district are looking out for suitable land to devote tc similar purposes. Government have so far progressed with the drawing out of their new taxation scheme as practically to have decided that the money now obtained from the property tax shall be raised by means of a tax on unimproved land, with exemptions up to £500, and a tax on incomes, with an exemption U_ to £300. The amount of the latter will b> sixpence in the pound.