Page 2 Advertisements Column 3

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10521, 24 February 1920, Page 2

PAY ! PAY! PAY ! (To. the Editor "N.Z. Times.") gi r> _Why should the returned soldier, if he succeeds in his application for laud, be charged stamp duty on the transfer and the mortgage? Surely the Government might have allowed the transaction to go through free of stamp duty. It is nothing to the wealthy man, but to the poor man, who comprises the bulk of Uio returned soldiers, it is a serious handicap just when he needs all his money for improvements. The total amount &-.i collected must be comparatively, small (although individually perhaps penalising', and could ;>asily be made up m ether ways. The Valuation Department, for instance, allows thousands of pounds to escape it every year by its obsolete and tardy valuations. Come to think of it, what does this Innd for returned soldiers pan out to? • It merely means the Government is charging top prices for land the values on which wore largely created by the soldiers' self-sacrifice, paying it to the men who have stopped at home and made huge profits, and making the very men who should have benefited on their roturn pay with 5 per cent, added. I fail to seo any great lohilosophy in this. Nevertheless, as I said., they might have forgone their claim to stamp duty. RETURNED SOLDIER'S FATHER. SNIFF UP, GARGLE or SWALLOW FLUENZOL