HOSPITAL TAX.

Northern Advocate, 17 June 1920, Page 3

HOSPITAL TAX.

(To the Editor.)

.Sir, —In common with other settlor. (our soldier-settlers included), I pay a hospital tax of £ of a penny in ihe pound sterling on the unimproved value of my land. Now, Sir, I will endeavour to prove to the readers of the "Advocate" that this tax is an unjust means of raising revenue for the upkeep of our hospital, the doors of which are open to all nations. We have just concluded peace with a nation whose subjects are pretty numerous in this district. I refer to the Austrian gumdiggers, who for years past and present have dug the land for a golden asset in the shape of kauri gum. Now, this kauri gum must be written down as one of the products of the land, tho digging, of which leaves the land many times poorer than it originally was. And yet New Zealand-born and British-bred subjects are forced to pay a hospital tkix out of the produce of their farms, the land which they till, so that, when they leave it, it will be he better by their having lived and worked upon it; whilst aliens, who are permitted to root great holes in our land in the search for gum, thus leaving the soil unfit for cultivation, are exempt from a hospital tax. In conclusion, I appear to tho Whangarei County Couw.'il (1) to protest to the Government against collecting this hospital tax, and (2) Y> advocate that the'deficiency in hospital icvenue be made a charge on the consolidated fund.—l am, etc.,

THE BREAKKR