UNEXPLOITED SOURCE OF REVENUE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 210, 4 August 1934, Page 7

UNEXPLOITED SOURCE OF REVENUE.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Now that the Aero Club troubles have been straightened out to the entire dissatisfaction of everybody, and the Government has succeeded in persuading taxpayers that it is quite in order for their recent economies to have resulted in an increase in expenditure, I have been hoping that your columns will be sufficiently free to bring forward a matter of real concern to the people. I have read with much interest recent references to the extent with which everything is ruled and overruled, Jawed and outlawed, restricted, taxed, limited, licensed and prohibited. We have seen our tomatoes, dustbins, hens, dogs, birds, and everything else with which mortal man comes into contact wrapped in miles of nice red tape to an extent that leaves a timid man like the writer positively afraid to make a single movement without consulting one of his seventy-two volumes of “What you Cannot do in New Zealand.” But this is by the way. What really staggers me is that a tremendous oversight has been committed by the powers that be. It is unaccountable. That such a thing should have so long escaped our Royal Commissions, Boards, Brain Trusts, Authorities, Super-Inspectors and Sub-Demonstra-tors seems appalling neglect. Reader, have you ever reflected that cats are absolutely free of all taxation and restriction. A source of tremendous wealth is being utterly thrown aside. Why, when you ponder on it, the only thing left to enjoy full and untrammelled freedom is the household cat. When this staggering fact came home to me, I took counsel with our ancient tom, and sought answer to the riddle in his rugged and not unHitlerlike visage. He met me with that haughty disdainful expression which never fails to make a mere human feel something of a worn. Nevertheless I suggest that all cats should be duly registered and licensed, and, on payment of the prescribed fee, fitted with a blue ribbon and identification disc. Worker cats would of course come in on a lower scale than mere tabbies who toil not, neither do they spin. It should be absolutely unlawful for any feline to be abroad after 8 p.m. unless equipped with a vocal silencer obtainable from the special Cat Department which would, of course, come into being. Now this proposal will not only serve a good purpose, but will give employment to another large host of civil servants whose salaries will be met from the public purse, resulting of course in further splendid economies and much use of that word beloved of officialdom, “co-ordination.” Trusting that my proposals will be given the full measure of consideration that they deserve. —I am, etc., FELIX.