TAX-FREE

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 147, 18 December 1924, Page 7

TAX-FREE

THE HIGH COMMISSIONERS

DECISION EXPLAINED

HAILED AS SIGN OF RAISED •STATUS.

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPYRIBHT.) (AUSTRALIAN-NEW ZEALAND CABLE ASSOCIATION.) (Received 18th December, 9 a.m.) LONDON, 37th December. Mr. P. C. Larkin (High Commissioner for Canada) explains that Mr. Amery's pronouncement regarding the remission of taxes and fees payable "by High Commissioners is the result of the efforts of Mr.. Mackenzie King (the Premier) at the last Imperial Conference. Mr. Bonar Law, in 1916, restricted the remission of the taxation of the official incomes of the High Commissioner. The new remissions apply to all expenditure, whether personal or official, relating to licenses of motor-cars, guns, men-servants, and private residences during the period of the High Commissionership. Canada had always objected to Liberia and the Balkan States enjoying diplomatic privileges which were not conceded to the Dominions, but the extension of these privileges to the Bolshevik Minister in London induced a vigorous protest which ! had resulted in Mr. Amery's pronouncement.

( The "Daily Telegraph'"' and the "Morning Post" commend Mr. Amery's statement. They interpret it as meaning that they will now be formally regarded as Ministers of the Empire, each representing a nation within the Empire by virtue of Imperial status. -The United Kingdom is the headquarters of that Empire, deriving its position, apart from other considerations, from the circumstance that it is the seat of the King's Government. His Majesty is also the head of every Government in the Empire, and should the Royal Standard be hoisted in any one of- the capitals of the Dominions, there would the headquarters' of the_ Empire be,, as long as the King remained in that place. The new arrangement, moreover, formally recognises the right of the Dominions to be consulted, on all matters of international policy, by His Majesty's Ministers in London. '