OUR AUSTRALIAN LETTER.

Evening Star, Issue 12883, 4 August 1906, Page 12

OUR AUSTRALIAN LETTER.

[Fbom Otto, Stecial Correspondent.]

SYDNEY, July 28. THE PROGRESSIVE LAND TAX. ;Tho Western Australian Labor FederaVion, having denounced the progressive land value taxation policv of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Labor party, Mr Watson has made.the following statement ° n the subject :—''lt seems to me that the Labor Federation misunderstand the position. They express disapproval of our interpretation of the taxation of unimproved land values, but that does not happen to be a plank of the Federal Labor platform, which provides for progressive taxation on unimproved values. - The ■word progressive governs it, and differentiates it from an all-round tax without exemptions. An all-round tax was defeated at the inter-State conference, and progressive taxation was adopted. ■ No details, however, were then adopted, and it remained for the Federal party to agree us tt>_ the particular form of progressive taxation that would be advocated. I am prepared to admit that a progressive tax is not so theoretically perfect as an all-round tax would be, but having regard to the circumstances existing in Australia, where settlement should, for the time being, at any rate, be the chief consideration, there is from a practical standpoint everything to be said tor a progressive tax. Obviously the man who is making his living on a small area of land is of more value to the community than the person who monopolises a large area, and does not use it to anything like its full extent. The Commonwealth is therefore justified in penalising in some measure the holding of more land than of a given value. With legard to the suggestion that we_ should withdraw our proposal, I may point out- that we cannot possibly depart from the line of policy that was adopted at the inter-State conference—■—viz., progressive taxation. The Western Australian Labor Federation think sin exemption of £5.000 too hirrh. but the circumstances attending the Federal tax are altogether different from those that might nnoly to State land taxation, put on princinaily for revenue purposes. All this taxation presumes to aim at is to ensure land being made available for settlement, although, no donbt, it will return some revenue. It would be quite consistent with the proposal of the State Parliament to impose a moderate all-round tax for purely revenue purposes; in,, fact, such a tax of Id in the £ exists in New South Wales now. Concerning the resolution of the Federation, that where Stateland taxation exists a Fedora.! tax should not annly. to carry this out would be unconstitutional. Under section 51. sub-sec-tion 2. of the Constitution, power is given to imnose taxation, with the qualification that no discrimination shall be exercised as between States or narts of States. It would therefore be beyond the power of the Commonwealth to imnose a tax which would be collected in some States and not in others."

VICTORIAN POLTCE COMMISSION. The Victorian Police Commission, who hnd been talcing evidence for a considerable time past, have at last presented a report. The Commissioners state, as a result of their investigation, that the police force as a whole consists of a reputable body of men, to whom the public may look with respect and confidence. Grave imputations of corruption and compounding of felonies were made, which, after exhaustive inquiry, wo find were • not proven. It is, then, the more to be regretted that instance of lack of discipline, not onlv amongst members of rank and file, but extending to certain officers, was shown to have occurred. Much of the time of the Commission was taken up with complaints of a trumpery character, which did not reflect to the advantage of the judgment displayed bv witnesses. Greater facilities should be afforded detectives to enter and search suspected places, for if .there were no receiver the snhere of crimes ■would be oonsiderablv diminished. The advent in our midst of the garoter is a Dew danger, which was effectually suppressed in London bv the application of the «it-of-nine-tails. Bomb-throwing is also a danger, as witness the attack on the home of Detective-sergeant O'Donnell. So long as our vagrancy laws are ineffectual the lives and nrnmwties of residents in the city and suburbs would be continually menaced bv ruffians who are roaming at large. While present statistics relating to undetected crime are described as fallacious Mid unsteady, the Commission, after " making all due allowance," are of opinion "that the proportion of crimes actually undetected is abnormal.'' Respecting gambling, lotteries, and betting, the Commission state :—" As the. law stands at present, there is evidently no chance of the police suppressing the Collingwood totalisator, and unless such measure as the Hon. I. A. Isaacs, M.P., introduced into the Legislative .Assembly some years ago "bo enacted, efforts of the police will continue to be useless, and we recommend that the Government should take immediate action to amend the law." GOLD STEALING IN THE WEST.

Mr J. E. Scantlebury, editor of the 'British Australian,' having made certain statements regarding the extent to which gold-stealing operations are carried on at Kalgoorlie, in West Australia, Detective Kavanagh was deputed to make an investigation of the subject. This officer has found that gold' stealing is carried on to an enormous extent, though not, in his opinion, to the extent of millions of pounds annually, as suggested by Mr Scantlebury. " I know of men here with enormous banking accounts who live in the lap of luxury," he remarks. "They live solely on stolen gold." He gives an instance of a man believed by most people to be honest and upright who was banking hundreds of ounces of gold, which he stated came from claims he was interested in. His son occupied a positon of trust on a certain mine, and Kavanagh had reason to believe he was supplying gold to his father. He conveyed his suspicions to the manager, who stated that for some unaccountable reason the output bad decreased considerably. A young fellow, a well-known criminal, was suspected of being the intermediary. He was discovered, but managed to escape. The son was then dismissed, and the output at once rose. This was only one of many cases. " There are men with dummy leases showing returns of hundreds of ounces," Detective Kavanagh goes on to say, "yet have never got the color even of gold, and never will. A suspected receiver worked a puddling machine with a horse, and had shown returns as high as 700oz monthly. I could cite numerous cases to prove the gold stolen annually would reach hundreds of thousands of ounces. I have had occasion to search a miner's house, and have frequently seen appliances for the treatment of gold. Ido not regard the miner as the greatest sinner. In my opinion persons in a much higher position get away with much more. All have to 3epend on the receiver, who is the worst of the lot. As a rule, he calls himself an assayer, and has ' gunners,' who call at miners' camps and collect amalgam and ore."

CHAEGE OF ATTEMPTED POISONING. A strange poisoning case has cropped np at Waverley (Sydney), and has resulted in Louisa Gordon (fifty-nine), a single . woman, being committed for trial on° a charge of having attempted to administer strychnine -to Mrs Mary Gordon. According to the evidence of Sydney E. Wood, a dairyman, on the morning of July • 12 he served accused with milk. The vessels brought to the door not being sufficient to hold the quantity, she took the measure into the house, and emptied - it. When accused returned the measure there was a little milk in tho bottom. '. Witness served Mrs Gordon, next door, out of the same measure, pouring two separate pints into a jug. He afterwards saw something in the bottom of the measure that looked like salts. He washed the measure out at the next cus-

toraer's, and tasted, the sediment, which was bitter. After serving two other people witness went back to Mrs Gordon's, and she gave him back the milk. When he poured the milk into an empty can he noticed some "settling" in the

Mary Doherty, a young woman; and a niece of Mrs Gordon, said she took the milk in on the morning of July 12. Four or five minutes, after receiving ft the milkman, came back, and she returned him the milk. He showed her the measure, and.she saw some white stuff in the bottom of it. Tho milkman put his hand into the measure and took some of the stuff out, which she took from his hand and put in a piece of paper. W. M. Hamlet, Government Analyst, said that on tho 13th inst. he' received from the police a milk-can and jng. The can contained a little more than a quart of mill; and the jug contained a piece of paper. The jug was otherwise empty, excepting that it had adhering to the inside some dried organic matter, in which he found a.largo number of crystals embedded. The jug was cracked, and all along the cftick witness found numerous crystals. These were submitted to analvsis, and witness succeeded .in scraping off' five grains of strychnine. He did not scrape it all off, as there was somo adhering at present. The piece of paper was partly saturated with milk, in which were traces of strychnine. The in the can was found to contain strychnine. Witness found one-tenth of a grain per fluid ounce. On (he 17th inst. Constable Roche delivered to witness some soil in a kerosene tin, weighing 111b. The soil was submitted to analysis, with the result that, witness found traces of strychnine in it.

In answer to-Mr MacFarlane, S.M., witness said the quantities of strychnine found would be danferous to human life. There would be sufficient in the jug to poison five people, and in the can there would he enough to poison eight. Joseph S. Cobb, a chemist," at Charing Cross, stated that accused had during the present year purchased seven small quantities of strychnine at his shop. Mary Gordon said she was a sister-in-law of the accused. There was ill-feelm" between accused and herself. The trouble came from acensed. as witness put her (witness's) husband into Callan Park. Witness had commenced an action-'against Miss Gordon for slander. On the morning of the 12th inst. the girl Dohertv came up to her room with a jug, in which there was a piece of brown paper, and there was some sediment adhering to the sides of the jug, which looked like salts undissolved The jug was subsenucntly handed to the Waverley police.