DEATH DUTY

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24369, 22 September 1944, Page 8

DEATH DUTY

Sir, —The practice of the Government, of claiming money in the form of death duty, seems to me to be altogether wrong, and war, more than anything else, shofts just how unjust, inconsiderate, and inhuman it is. For example, we see instances everywhere of /families of which the boys have gone to war. and the father has put every penny he possessed into war loans and even borrowed money to do so Then .he dies, and what is the result? The mother, having lost a son and perhaps two. and then her husband, is not only grief-stricken; she is faced with the worst of all worries, the financial worry, just at a time when she is least able to bear it. In most cases there are enough financial worries to deal with when the father dies, without the Government putting in a claim for which it has no moral right.—Yours, etc., J«XI. September 20, 1944.

Approximately 1,000,000 superficial feet of timber will be dispatched from the West Coast shortly. Besides loading 800 tons of coal, the Gabriella is scheduled to lift 440,000 superficial feet, and the Poolta will lift 8800 posts for Poverty Bay in addition to 1600 tons of coal Towards the end of the week. 500.000 superficial feet of timber will be railed to Canterbury for shipment, this being equivalent to 50 U.B. waggon loads. The Port Waikato is also expected early next week at Greymouth to load timber,