CURRENT TOPICS

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCV, Issue 10919, 30 March 1896, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

The French Chamber has, wo learn by cable, approved of the principle of an income tax, and has left the Premier and the Budget

INCOME TAXATION IN FRANCE.

Committee to fix tie details of the scheme. The proposals of M. Bourgeois are of a sufficiently Eadical character, giving full play to the principle of graduation. Incomes of £IOO a year or less are free. The maximum rate is 5 per cent, or a shilling in the pound, but for purposes of assessment a portion of <£loo a year not liable to duty will be deducted from the taxpayer’s income. The portion of income between .£IOO and £2OO a year will pay 1 per cent, the portion between £2OO and £4OO 2 per cent, the portion between £4OO and £BOO 3 per cent, the portion between £BOO and £2OOO 4 per. cent, and on the’ portion of income above £2OOO the full duty of a shilling in the pound will bo paid. Thus a person with an income of £3OOO a year will pay 5 per cent on £IOOO of his income, 4 per cent on £I2OO, 3 per cent on £4OO, 2 per, cent on £2OO, and 1 per cent on £IOO, and will pay no tax on the remaining hundred a year. No person will ever pay the full duty of 5 per cent on his whole income. A curious feature of the scheme is that partial relief is to be granted for family encumbrances, reaching as much as one-half in case of large families. This is to encourage people to have children. The new scheme, according to a Paris correspondent, was expected to be violently attacked by the capitalist class, who suspect that the principle of graduation is the thin end of the wedge that will lead to confiscation. The tax as proposed was expected to yield six millions sterling annually. The Budget Committee •will doubtless insist upon some modifications in the scheme; but the acceptance of the principle is a hopeful symptom of the final acceptance of an equitable plan of graduated taxation. Our French friends may bo comforted by the knowledge that in New Zealand graduation has not proved to be synonymous with confiscation.

There was an interesting centenary celebration in New South Wales on Thursday last. The celebration, which took place at

' AN AUSTRALIAN CENTENARY.

the town of Wollongong, was to commemorate the discovery of the Illawarra District of New South Wales by Flinders and Bass. These two young men, attached to one of his Majesty’s ships at Sydney, the former a midshipman, the latter a surgeon, seem to have found time heavy on their ■hands aboard the Reliance. They got the use of a little boat, the Tom Thumb, and provisioned her for a short run down the • coast. Then, leave of absence having been granted, they left, with a boy for crew, on March 25, 1796. They were carried out of their course by one of those currents that, still perplex navigators along the Australian coast. They landed among the Five Islands and were driven in upon the mainland by want of water. On March 26 water was obtained by swimming ashore and filling a cask, but on the next day, guided by. “ Indians,” the Englishmen sailed round to an inlet, by which they, reached a lake. Here they watered, and found themselves in some difficulties from the natives. Escaping from these by stratagem,the voyage was continued as far as about the present site of Wollongong, where another landing was made.

This is the discovery .which the Illawarra people have been celebrating ; and it is worthy of note in this connection that next year, the residents of Newcastle, will celebrate the centenary of the discovery of coal in that district. These celebrations ser.ve to remind colonists of the youth of their countiy and of the great advance made during the past century. The Illawarra of to-day, through which the traveller passes by an excellent railway in a few hours—a • land rich in agriculture, pasture, mining, and other industries, with flourishing towns and pleasant homesteads scattered through a smiling landscapo —is very different from the almost trackless country of scrub and forest, peopled with savage aborigines, some convicts, sawyers and timber-getters and their families, with a few redcoats to protect them, that existed down to about the year 1810.

SEVEN s HUNDRED APPLICATIONS.

A lurid light on one phase of the unemployed difficulty is thrown by a >. recent advertisement in a

London paper. The advertisement appeared in the London Times, and was as follows: —“ Mrs Harry Quilter has selected a nursery governess, and begs to inform the seven hundred other candidates that the photographs with which stamps were sent will bo presently returned.” As a curiosity in the way of notices of the kind this particular paragraph is unique. Even in this colony, vacant clerkships, caretakerships and posts of the kind have been known to attract their scores or fifties, but a total of 700 all in full charge on one place is probably an Eno-lish record. As a side issue, the paragraph may be taken as an eloquent testimony to the virtues and accomplishments of “ Mrs Harry Quilter,” and to the good fortune that any connection with her household implies. But, primarily, its interpretation is that the market for female labour, at least of the “unskilled” variety, is in a had way. In all probability, only a proportion of

the 700 applicants were actually out of employment ; but, in any case, the disparity between the number of nursery governesses and the number of lady employers js almost appalling. A good deal has been •written in these columns of late about the improved moral and material advancement cf the English people during the last fifty years, and the fact that this is so cannot be too constantly borne in mind. It is undeniable that pauperism has declined, that the standard of comfort has risen, and that crime is far less common than it was •when Queen Victoria came to the throne. 'But the advertisement from the Times certainly shows the reverse side of the picture, and it is one that is decidedly an unpleasant one. The outstanding solution, or, at any rate, palliation of the difficulty, appears to be to give women exactly the game chances as men in the way of education and development. It is related of William Pitt the elder that ho advised an importunate place-hunter to go and learn Spanish,, but when the man returned he was met by the remark, “I envy you the pleasure of reading ‘ Don Quixote 5 in the original.” The woman who has had the benefit of a sound course of training has, at any rate, a fair chance of meeting with a snore satisfactory reply.