Our Taxed Breakfast Tables.

Manawatu Herald, 15 December 1898, Page 2

Our Taxed Breakfast Tables.

Comparat yely few people in New 3 -aland realise bow heavy a harden hpy have to bear in the shape of taxes on the necessaries of life. Mr H. G. Ell, a member of the Canterbury Progressive Liberal Association, has been devoting some attention to this subject, and the results of his study are sufficiently striking. A? he points oat, to merely state that , certain articles bear a duty of $d, ld»*** 2d, or 4d per 1b does not oonvey any adequate idea of what these duties really mean. Let the duties be expressed according to value, and a totally different conception of their gravity will be obtained. Acting on information supplied by importers, Mr Ell has compiled the following tables of duties on articles of oommon i use: — Tea — Duty 46 per lb ... 40 per cent. Svgar — Duty id lb ... 30 per cent. Rice — Duty 6s cwt ... 42 per cent. Salt— Duty 10s ton ... 38 per cent. Raisins — Duty ad lb ... 50 per cent. Currants— Duty ad lb ... 120 per cent. Sultanas — Duty 3d lb ... 50 per cent. Figs — Duty 2d lb ... 50 per cent. Dates—Duty ad lb ... 104 per cent. Pres. ginger-— Duty ad lb 50 per cent. Kerosene-*rDuty 6d gal. 90 per cent. A " free breakfast- table " ought to he the aim of every Liberal politician ; but the people of this country are very far from having that. For every pound of 23 tea the housewife buys she pays, say, Is 8d to the grocer and fourpence to the Customs officer; and the healthy "human boy " who consumes a pennyworth of currants in his pudding has to give another penny to the Govern* ment for the privilege. It is as bad with light as with food, for there is a tax of two shillings levied on every tin of kerosene consumed. On the articles enumerated in the above tables the Colonel Treasurer of New Zealand collects annually a sum of over £800,000. The taxation on these goods is in no sense protective, bat is levied for revenue purposes. The amount paid annually by the average household of seven persons in the shape of tea and sugar duties 19 a little over £2. The duty on tea, to be exact, amounts to Is ll|d per head of the population, while that 00 sugar is as high as 83 lOd per head. Taxation of this kind falls with undue severity upon those who are fulfilling the highest duty of citieen r ship by rearing large families. — Chronicle.