NEW ZEALAND WOMAN'S NOTEWORTHY CASE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XVIII, Issue XVIII, 16 January 1913, Page 4

NEW ZEALAND WOMAN'S NOTEWORTHY CASE.

About six weeks ago a New Zealand laay, who must stilt ue well remembered by many people in the Middle Island, was successful as the appellant in a somewhat important • case in England. The lady in question is Dr Alice Meredith Burn, who is now medical inspector for the County of Durham. She was, however, born in the Geraldine distri-jt, South Canterbury, educated at the Waimate High School and Canterbury College, and afterwards took her degree in medicine at Edinburgh University. While she was still in her girlhood in New Zealand, she married Mr D. W. M. Burn, a graduate of Otago University, and for many years Mathematical Master at the Waitaki High School. Latterly Mr Burn, who has continuously resided in New Zealand since he came to it in his childhood, has been closely identified with the cause of Theosophy; but his wife, having succeeded, and found an honorable position for herself in the Old Country, their separation is purely geographical, and, as such, is so with their cordual mutual consent. Tho case to which Dr Burn has been a party m England turned on this fact. When recently she was asked in the usual way to pay income-tax, she refused, on the ground that she was "a married woman living with her husband." This plea, was not accepted by the Crown, and Dr Burn appealed to the Commissioners of Taxes, before whom it was contended, on her behalf, that her separation from her husband was purely a geographical one, and could, therefore, have no.legal consequences. This was her reply to the Crown, whose contention was that 'i.he could not claim th'e exemption, since she was not living with her husband in actual fact." After hearing evidence and argument, the Commissioners decided

that Dr Burn was living with her husband, and that, therefore, she was not liable for income tax. The Crown had intended to take the matter to the High Court, but the Board of Inland Revenue, which had prosecuted the claim for tho payment of income tax by Dr Burn, decided, on further consideration, to go no further with the case. It may be added that Dr. Burn had been threatened with arrest and commital for refusing to pay the tax, and hence, hexappeal to the Commissioners of Taxes. Thus <i whilom-New Zealand country girl has been the means of securing an instructive legal decision, which is likely to have important effects. It will at least be practically certain to follow that women who are, in fact, living with their husbands will now refuse to pay income tax in England. Besides this, those New Zealanders who knew Dr Burn during her girlhood and the ! earliest years of her married life at Oamaru and in Christchurch, will no doubt enjoy the comedy that consists in the contrast between the past and the present. The time when she was — Just a jinking, bonnie blinking, Hiltie-slultie lassie, 0, who believed that 6un-baked dough was a sovereign remedy for indigestion; and that the emancipation of woman must be sought through the medium of rational dress reform, is certainly amusingly different from that when, as medical inspector for the County of Durham, she successfully prosecutes a plea with consequences of interest and importance to the whole British Empire. This, of course, is no reflection on Dr. Burn, but rather to her credit; indeed, trie contrast makes her hardly less a factor in contributing to the gaiety of nations, than her successful plea is in establishing the immunity of British married women in England from the payment of income tax.