THE STALLION TAX IN QUEENSLAND.

Waikato Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 3500, 29 November 1894, Page 2

THE STALLION TAX IN QUEENSLAND.

An Australian exchange says: The second reading of the Queensland Stallion Tax Bill will take place on the 18th instant, The Bill requires owners of stallions to include in their annual returns of stock a description of all stallions over the age of 20 months in their possession. The tax to he imposed is; £5 a year for each stallion, with a"' penajty of not less than £lO nor more than £SO for default. All moneys accruing from the tax, which, is made payable in the first instance to the clerks of the petty sessions, are to be remitted to the Minister and placed to the credit of a general account in the ■Treasury known as" The Stallion Fund," on which bank interest, will accrue, and which, will be appropriated to-the pay-, ment of premiums for the improvement of the breed of horses;' The colony, is to be divided into districts to be coincident with the sheeD districts, in each of which there is to be a Stallion Boa,rd of .. three, persons, not being the owners of. corapetius? stallions, to be apsointed' by / the Governor-in-" Council. The whole of the Stallion Fund is to be annually apportioned by the Minister among the contributing districts in proportion to the amount paid by each, when the apportionment will be notified in the Gazette. In every year between the Ist April and the 31st August, the board of ea:h district are required to notify by advertisement that they will meet for the purpose of judging stallions, and any owner may, on giving a week's notice, submit a stallion or stallions for adjudication, but no stalliou may compete in one year in more than one district under penalty of disqualification of its owner. A yearly fee of three guineas is to be'paid out of the local stallion fund to each member of the board. At the appointed time and place the board will meet, and by personal inspection judge the stallions that may be submitted to them and may award premiums of not less than £BO each to the owners of horses of the highest merit. Rut it is provided that a certain number uf such premiums shall be awarded to draught stallions.