ABOUT AUSTRALIA.

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2321, 27 March 1914, Page 3

ABOUT AUSTRALIA.

■ X MLJCCTJtJf. IELEGB.APM —OOrTEISHS FIB PBEM AB6OCUTIQN. THE INCOME TAX BILL.

Sydney, March 26. The Government introduced and read a first time the Income Tax Bill. It reduces exemption to £250 and increases rates to Is in the £ on the income of all companies. Where the taxable income of persons does not exceed £700, the rate is £8, with an additional third of 8d on income derived from the purchase of property. The rates are graduated to Is 2d, and an third for incomes over, £9,700. It is intended to place the Income Tax Commissioner beyond the control of the Public Service Board. Itinerant professionals, including singers and boxers, will be required to pay * tax on the salaries earned here. The Opposition strongly attacked the Government's extravagance, which caused the increase of taxation.

A FRENCH STEAMER WRECKED. (Received 9.35 a.m.)

Brisbane, March 27

The French steamer St. Paul (1683 tons), bound from Noumea to Brisbane, struck a rock at the entrance to the Brisbane rirer, and sank.

Eleven persons were saved, but it is not known how many were drowned. The owners are the Oceanic Navigation Company.

Melbourne, March 27

Anxiety is felt for the safety of the steamer Henrik Ilsen, which left New York 63 days ago and has not been heard of since calling at St. Vincent. The steamer was chartered by the United Tyser line and had a full cargo of general merchandise consigned to Australia and New Zealand.

DAVID NATHAN ON THE STRIKE. (Received 10.5 a.m..)

Sydney, March 27

Mr David Nathan, of Wellington, . interviewed, referring .to the recent strike in New Zealand, said the whole business was a piece of political engineering for party purBoses, stage managed with a sort of Machiavelian finesse. The Massey Government made tke same mistake as Napoleon, in obtaining control of the presa. Only two metropolitan newspapers and a few in smaller towns remained in definite opposition. Generally speaking, he said, the great mass of New Zealand workers was opposed to the Massey Government.