BACHELORS BEWARE ! A Taxation Proposal.

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 123, 8 November 1902, Page 8

BACHELORS BEWARE ! A Taxation Proposal.

HIS Warship the Mayor (Mr. J. G. W. Aitken) has been called upon. to tackle some knotty questions in his time, but now that he is a candidate for a city seat, the knots will be still more frequent . At his opening meeting, on Tuesday night, he was asked if he was in favour of taxing bachelors by a graduated scale, with a view to compelling them to marry, and so relieve the pressure caused on the labour market by the competition of old and young maids with men. * * * Mr. Aitken is in favour of such a tax, the proceeds to be devoted to a fund for the pensioning of maiden ladies. If the age after which bachelors shall be taxed is, say, twenty-five, Mr. Aitken should be approached as soon as he gets his bill through, with a view to making him pay up twenty-five years of oireamß or so. If the age ait which maiden ladies are to be pensioned is, say, forty-five, there will be no applicants, and the fund may be used for pensioning indigent Ms.H.R., or reading the boggy North. The querist may have been a humourist, or he may have been in deadly earnest over the competition of women with men, and the pressure on the labour market. * • • Anyhow, business girls — old or young — show less inclination than formerly to marry, seeing that they can eaiw money independent of male assistance. It would be quite fair, therefore, to extend the tax to unmarried ladies who refused to liteten to the voice of the male charmer. The fund, of course, to be used to pension old bachelors, who would own right up to any age at all, especially if the pension was assessed weight (of gold) for age. The "girl" who voluntarily owned, by applying for the pension, that, do what she would, no man would have her, would probably suicide out of the reach of the pension scheme, or the sniffs of her contemporaries who still hoped on. • • * It is just as well that the proposal to place that tax on a graduated scale was made, so that the merchant bachelor's tax may be on a par witih his income, and the labourer bachelor's tax not too heavy on his 50s a week. There would be no difficulty about ages, of course, or incomies. Men are so truthful when money is hanging on the issue ! Then, if >thie Barkis who was willin' could not get a Peggy, and the law still taxed him, what then? The law would certainly have to establish matrimonial depots, where old maid applicants for pensions could await selection by the willing ones. * * ♦ It is a magnificent scheme, this bachelor taxing, and we are glad Mr. Aitken favours it, but we think that all the spinsters applying for the pension should be thoroughly cross-examined' by the court as to their willingness to accept matrimony if a suitable person can be found. There is no reason why the State should not take the question of matrimony in hand. Either marry bachelors off-hand, or fine them. Confirmed bachelors first. Mr. Aitken favours it. Tax him.