THE BACHELORS OF AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4128, 13 June 1874, Page 3

THE BACHELORS OF AUCKLAND.

(From the Melbourne Age, June 2.) A singular statement comes to us from New Zealand. It is to the effect that the Auckland Provincial Council has decided to impose an educational tax of £1 annually on all bachelors. If this had been an item of American news, it would have excited no surprise, for onr American cousins are given to extravagances of this character, and arc proud of the meutal originality which creates them. But, that a soberminded British community should impose a tax for tho purpose of educating children upon young men is an advanced step in social science that is suggestive of some more terrible mandate to follow. Our own statistics prove that marriages arc on the decrease in this colony, and it may be inferred that tho decision of the Auckland ‘Provincial Council is based upon a similar disinclination on the part of the New Zealand bachelorhood to accept marital responsibilities. Here, however, local circumstances are not precisely tlio same as in New Zealand. Here, there is a wide field of choice, ranging from the fashionable portion of Collins Street to the sewing-machine room; and

although this embraces young women of all ages, nationalities, and creeds, the antecedents of every class arc generally respectable. In New Zealand, on the other hand, ])opnlation, especially the female section of it, is getting very mixed ; and although the old identity may be regarded as sans rcpvorhc, the new iniquity, consisting of penitent Magdalens and the female refuse of English and Irish workhouses, are scarcely to be regarded as desiral.de mates for New Zealand bachelors of unblemished virtue. But the projiosed tax on unmarried men for the purpose of educating the rising generation admits of an inference eminently damaging to the character of New Zealand bachelors. They may reasonably ask why they should be especially called upon to pay for the education of other people’s offspring, whex they were in a position to pay for that o their own, they would not be bachelors at all. We might understand an income-tax for educational purposes, for the reason that men who are receiving a large income in the Colony owe some obligation to those who assisted them to make it, and that an easy way of repayment would bo by assisting to improve the education status of the young. But to tax the bachelors of a country ostensibly because they are bachelors, and many of them compulsorily so, through want of means to marry, seems the very essence of absurdity. It would be far to tax all married persons, because it is a fair presumption that the majority of them have children to educate, and may not unreasonably be expected to contribute to that end something to the State fund. But taxes of this character, by whatever name they may be called, are not conceived iu the spirit of true statesmanship. This absurd decision may, no doubt, be traced to some crotchety member of the Auckland Provincial Council, who has ventilated it so frequently that at last it has inoculated his brother councillors. To whatever it may be due, it reflects no credit upon its author. It encourages the inference that women .are not only a preponderating element in Auckland society, but that either their charms or their characters are so far below par that men will not marry them, and that, as a punishment for their contumacy, the bachelors of the Province arc, upon a false plea, to be mulcted in one pound per annum. The bachelors of Auckland may perhaps consider that they escape marital bondage at alow figure, but the smallness of the penalty also implies that the Auckland Provincial Council hold the women of that Province at a very cheap value.