CANADA'S WAS TAX

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2502, 1 July 1915, Page 7

CANADA'S WAS TAX

HOW IMPOSED INTERVIEW WITH MR M: MYERS Details of the war taxes imposed by Canada, particulars of wlich nave not yetbeen published in this country, wuro given to a Dominion reporter yesterday by Mr. M. Myers, who ,'ias just returned to Wellington after an extended trip through Canada and the United States. These are the more interesting in view of the possible war taxes to be imposed here. In the first place, in Canada thero has been imposed a war tax of one cent (id.) by way of postal duty upon letters, postcards, and postal notes, and a tax of two cents (Id.) on money orders. _ In regard to the postal tax a special war tax stamp has been issued, but so long as the extra postal due is paid. this can be interchangeable with the ordinary st?mp. There is also a tax of one cent on all telegraphic and cable messages, and a war tax imposed upon banking documents. Prior to the war there was no duty stamp required at all on cheques, but now the following. taxes have been imposed. Onequarter of one per cent, on bank notes 'in circulation, a 6tamp of two cents on every cheque, and a stamp .of two cents on every bill of exThen as regards insurance companies, there is a tax of one per cent, on the net amount of all insurance premiums. In respect of trust and loan companies, a company tax of one per cent, "on gross amount" is imposed. On steamship tickets exceeding ten dollars there is a war tax of one dollar; on tickets exceeding 40 dollars there is a tax of three dollars; and on tickets exceeding 60 dollars a tax of five dollars.. On train sleeping berth tickets there is a tax of ten cents, and five cents on train parlour seat tickets. For railway tickets over one dollar and under five dollars there is a tax of five cents, and for each additional five, dollars there is a tax of five cents. A graduated tax is imposed on patent medicines, amounting to four cents in the case of an article sod for one dollar. These tax stamps have to be affixed by the vendor and cancelled before he delivers the article. A tax has also • been imposed on wines and spirits.

In Canada there is no land tax and no income tax, and the revenue is very largely made up by Customs duties, so a war tax has heen imposed-of 7} per cent, ad valorem) on all imported goods. That is .to say, where goods wero dutiable prior to the war the duty is now 1\ per cent, ad valorem greater than it was, and where goods wero free there is now payable a duty'of 7J per cent. American Opinion. Referring to the general effect of the war on America,' Mr. Myers said that the States are supplying enormous : quantities of munitions from the east to the Allies in Europe, aud'are fliso supplying large quantities to Russia through Vladivostok. In Seattle, for instance, ho saw 120 aeroplanes which were being consigned ,to Vladivostock. aud he heard that large supplies of munitions were being , sent forward in the same way. Judging from what was heard from the man in the street, the bulk of the American opinion was sympathetic to the Allies; that was to say, they hoped to 6ee the Allies successful, but one could not help thinking they wero quito prepared to sell their goods to whoever was prepared to buy- them. Mr. Myers was in America when the Lusitania was sunk, and he said that there was no doubt that the ait of the Germans in sinking the Lusitania created intenso feeling in America, but one could not help feeling that tho retentinent was caused" not so much at the fact of tho vessel having been torpedoed without the lives of the non-combatants generally being saved, as at the fact that some 'of those who were killed wero Americans. _ This observation, he said, applied in the main to talk of the man in the street. It did not apply to the . official or to the leading papers, which criticised and denounced the act on much .broader lines. Before the Lusitania left New York there was published, .under the name of the German Embassy, an advertisement (a copy of which appeared in Tms Dominion yesterday) warning American citizens against travelling on British vessels. As was pointed out by some of the American newspapers, the publication of that notice, behind the backs of the American authorities, was a piece of impudence. If the President of the United States had taken the matter up at that stage and telegraphed an appropriate Note to the German Government, possibly their hands might have been stay- ' Mr. Bryan's Attitude. 'Mr. Myers referred to tho following statement made "by Mr. W. J, Bryan, Secretary of State, at the time of his resignation:— "Why should an American citizen he permitted to involve his country in war by travelling upon a belligerent ship when he knows that the ship will pass through a danger zone? The tiucstion is not whether an American citizen has a right under international law to travel on a belligerent ship, the que*tion is whether he ought not, out of consideration for his country, if not for his own safety avoid danger when avoidance is possible. In i other words, Mr. Bryan had implied: "We should submit to Germany's dictation and prevent our citizens from exercising their. undoubted right of travelling on any ship they like, subject only to the risk, according to international law and usuage, rf having the vessel sunk after their lives have been-saved."