REACHING THE BACHELOR.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVII, Issue 7914, 4 August 1917, Page 4 (Supplement)

REACHING THE BACHELOR.

Australia, personified by Mr Hughes, is out after the bachelor. It is not so many years since the possibility of a tax on bachelors provided much raw material for the humorist. In fact, it might have been bracketed with the baby bonus as the staple subject for political comedy of the cheaper sort. Yet the baby bonus has come to Australia, and been accepted by the mass of the people there. The only criticism levelled at it to-day is based on the form it should take; the principle of maternity assistance is recognised as a duty of the State. And so, according to the Sydney “Sun,” it will be with the bachelor tax. The world moves, and the “Sun” opines that a decade hence it will be wondering what strange, illogical creatures its ancestors must have been to grant what amounted to a subsidy to those of its citizens who were of least value to it. fl@re, surely, is a sound argument:—“One of the greatest injustices of modern life arises from the inequality of necessities and comforts, brought about by the equality of payment. The basic wage of Mr Justice Higgins is at best a crude and unscientic effort to adjust the burdens with some semblance of fairness. In his endeavours to arrive at some solution of the problem Mr Justice Higgins had to work out his financial scale 0.1 the .assumption that the wage-earner was a married men with fox r children, which means that, if his calculations were correct, the man with three children was too ’veil paid, while the man with five children would find great difficulty in keeping the wolf from the door. There is no reason why the children of one engineer or one carpenter should be less well-fed or less well-clothed tlno the children of another engineer or another carpenter. Yet if there happen to he fewer of them they certainly must ho. The money available for their upkeep remains stationary; their stomachs aro filled in inverse proportion to their numbers. They are the little punters on the tote of life, and the size of their dividends depends on their fewness.*' Tho extreme difficulty of devising any means of adjusting the matter has scared off all'reformers—politicians, sociologists and labour leaders have all alike dodged the question, or brushed it aside as “ beyond the sphere of practical politics.” But credit must be given to New South Wales for taking the first serious step when it decided to grant an exemption from income tax of £SO for each child ot the taxpayer. The principle thus established was later accepted by the Commonwealth, though in a more niggardly spirit, but now Mr Hughes has taken another step in announcing his intension to levy a tax designed to strike at “eligible single young men of military age.” The

“Sun”. suggests that the only faul which be found with Mr Hughes’ suggestion is that it does not go fa enough. It is right and proper tlia the eligible single young man of m-’li tary age should bo taxed, but it is a Ist righ. and proper that the ineligibl single old man not of military hgi should be required to pay more toward the government of his country and tin conduct of the war than the man win lias accepted the full responsibilities o citizenship. Though not always admit -ted by politicians, it is practical!' axiomatic that taxation is first levelled at those best able to pav. Every conn try in tho A.OITI looks upon alcohol anc tobacco as luxuries, and drops cn tin drinker and the smoker for a solid pro portion of its revenue. Other luxuriei aro also regarded as fair game, anf even in lands regarded as conservative the rich man is invariably chosen a..? tin easiest mark for revenue purposes. Bui in defining r elies it is well to considei the domestic condition of the taxpayer and concerning this, the “Sun” says “From the forum of the Sydney Domain much eloquence about the rsufforing proletariat and the purse-proud and arrogant capitalist radiates from every soap-box; yet, in reality, the unmarried proletariat at the basic wage of €3 3s a week is a much more opulent person than the so-called capitalist with £ls a week and half a dozen children. Apart from the expense of maintaining his home, it must not he forgotten that while the single man at £3 3s escapes income tax and pays indirect taxation only in so far as it affects himself, the father has to contribute two income taxes of such dimensions that he feels their cost, and, moreover, has to eontribute, by indirect taxation, a, portion out of every ; enny 110 pays to feed and clothe end educate his six children. Tho surprising part of it all is that the labour unions, most cf the members of have been r o long content to submit to such conditions; probably they have done so only because, like the rest, they have failed to see a way out. In existing conditions it would be manifestly unfair to demand that an employer should pay his workers in proportion to the :,ize of Heir families; such .1 provi-

h-’d to a!! employers stipulating that only single men would be taken on. It is unlikely that any trades union could successfully carry out a scheme whereby its single members would be charged additional fees sufficiently Urge. to assist the married members. A direct bachelor tax may be the speediest means of accomplishing the end sought when a state of war makes time of exfcia value. But in :ih probability the necessary equalisation would best be ?cached by a scientific system of exemptions under the income taxation schemes, together with a lowering of the general exemption almost to the vanishing point. The objection to a low exemption lias nlwnv-, been that the tax costs more to collect than it returns. That objection is sound enough, if the existing methods r.f collection are applied But there is :io

reason why'fhoy should be. An income ns low as £l5O a year could be made profitably taxable by requiring \he stamping of wages receipts.” Here is a problem towards the solution of which the married men of the New Zealand Second Division might profitably devote their attention.