The Feilding Star. Published Daily. SATURDAY. JULY 29, 1898. A Poll-tax

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 25, 29 July 1893, Page 2

The Feilding Star. Published Daily. SATURDAY. JULY 29, 1898. A Poll-tax

Why the bachelors in tho colony should bo tho special objects of tho aversiou of Mr 0. 11. Mills, the represeutativo of Waitnea-Picton, of course we do not know, but that such was his feeling towards them when ho said in tho House, a few evenings ago, that if ho was aguiu elected he would be inclined to movo for a reduction of the Customs tariff, tho loss of revenue consequent to bo made up by a tax on bachelorft. He would tax bachelors £5 per head ; a man and his wife £4 ; £1 per head for the first three children ; 15s for the next throe ; 10s for the three following, and so on. Mr Mills thought this would kill two oirds with one stone, i.e., it would increase the population which he said was dwindling ; and add to the revenue. Wo would liko to suggest to the single men in the electorate which has the honor to be represented by (his sapient alleged legislator, that they do their level best, if only out of a desire for self protection, to enforce tho retirement of Mr Mills from pubHe life. If Mr Mills know oven the rudiments of political economy, he would not have given utterance to such a solecism as that of putting a tax on the raw material which bachelors can, with justice, claim to be. Then, why want to tax a man and his wife and their children on a scale which would be really more obnoxious than his proposed tax on bachelors ? How does he arrive at the relative proportions ? The plain fact is that Mr Mills has evidently in his time eaten a very considerable amount of " flapdoodle," which is the food of fools. We do not know what are Mr Mills' politics — if ho has any — but it appears to us that he desires to crush tho poorer classes, who have largo families, at ihe expense of those who have not given these hostages to fortune. Neither is there BDy originality in the idea of Mr Mills, for we are told in English history, at the closo of the reign of Edward 111., tho expodient of a poll-tax had been used to obtain a supply of money, and in 1381 — that is over five hundred years ago — this project was rouewod uuder circumstances of tyranuy and hardship, which led to a general and formidable rising of the peasantry. Each person, male or female, at tho age of fifteen years was made to pay three groats, or twelvopence ; but in the towns a sliding-scale was adopted according to the means of the citizens, the poorest burgher paying one groat, the richest as much us sixty for himself and his wife. Every school boy knows, except, perhaps, Mr Mills, how Wat. Tyler resented the insult of a taxcollector to his daughter, and the rebellion which ensued. Mr Mills is, therefore, a more plagiarist, although, perhaps, an unconscious one.