Heard on the Train.

Manawatu Times, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 12784, 6 May 1914, Page 5

Heard on the Train.

There's a tremendous lot of money being put through the totalisator lately. Every race meeting shows an increase.

Yes, we are a great people, so far as gambling is concerned. But don 't forget that this money is not lost; it simply changes hands.

But a considerable amount of it is lost to the sporting public, because the machine takes ten per cent of the total. Then again, the State collars a tax on this, and on all the income of the clubs.

Why do the sporting public stand that robbery? Simply because they are frightened that if they resist the robbers t.li? machine will be abolished. Yet they are quite strong enough to demand that their particular form of sport shall not be specially taxed. What a howl there would be if the State taxed the golf, tennis, hockey and cricket clubs, and charged a fee on theatre tickets?

I am glad to see that both in Australia and Britain there are attempts being made to lower the exemption under the income tax. I hope they will get it down in New Zealand too, so that it affects those who are in receipt of £IOO a year, instead of beginning at £3OO. How will that affect you? Well, in the first place if more people have to pay the tax I shall have to pay less, and secondly, if it is made more universal the iniquitous levy will be abolished. Why is it iniquitous? If you are earning a good income you ought to be able to pay a tax. That argument is the same as that of th ehighway robber woh robs the rich man, and lets the poor man go free. Every man who has what yon call a good income spends most of it, and in doing so he contributes at least a third of it to the State in indirect taxation through the Customs. Why should he be hit again with a special tax of 2% to 5 per cent on his net income? But the State must have revenue.

Then let the State collect it in payment for services rendered by it, and not after the fashion of the buccaneer. You forget, too, that when I die my income ceases, because I .can no longer follow my occupation and therefore my wife and family will have no income. If I had large landed estates I could leave them well off, but I can't beqeuath my brains. It is the most iniquitous form of taxation that has ever been devised, and its first application was only justified because it was imposed as a war-tax.

It is high time the State considered the question of prohibiting boxing fights between negroes and white men. * Ah. you only say that because so far there has been no one found who is able to knock out Jack Johnson.

How can a white man hope to hurt a nigger with a skull over an inch thick? The only chance would be to administer a kick on the shins, where the animal is tender, but this the rules disallow. Any one of Tommy Burns' blows ought to have smashed the other fellow.

Yes. but why should the State interfere ?

Because when a negro manages* to defeat a white man in the ring the coloured races begin to grow cocky, and it occupies too much time to convince individuals that they are not all Jack Johnsons. It also injures the "mana" of the white race, and gives the coloured people very erroneous ideas, which only lead them into trouble

That Bill before the British Parliament which aims at preventing the purchase of titles seems to imply that titles have been sold.

Of course they have, and always will be. What chance would a poor man ever have of obtaining the right to prefix some title to his name or to found a family with hereditary title?

Then each new title nowadays merely means that its possessor had money to spare. Where is the honour?

Nowhere. A few—a very fewtitle have been obtained by merit, but of the origin of some the less said the better. VIATOR.