DEBTOR’S HUMOUR

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3267, 24 May 1943, Page 7

DEBTOR’S HUMOUR

LAWS AND LICENSES “ROBBED UNTIL RUINED” EXPLANATION OF HIS POSITION “I can tell you honestly that except for a miracle I could not enclose this cheque. The wolf that comes to so many doors nowadays had pups in my kitchen. I sold them, so here is the money.” So wrote a South African debtor to a creditor firm that sought the payment of a small debt, and his humorous explanation of his position shows that in the Union taxes and licenses and control of business are as farreaching as they are in New Zealand. The letter proceeds: “In reply to your request to send a cheque I wish, to inform you that the present condition of my bank account would make it ordinarily impossible. My shattered financial condition is due to Union laws, provincial laws, town laws, liquor laws, sister-in-laws, mother-in-laws and outlaws. Through these I am compelled to pay business tax, super tax, school tax, gas tax, excise tax-, sales tax, tariff tax, railway tax, petrol tax and amusement tax. Even my brains are taxed.

“I am required to get a -business license, car license, truck license, dog license, not to mention a marriage license. I am required to contribute to every society and organisation which the genius of man is capable of bringing into life, to women’s- relief and unemployment relief, also toevery hospital and charitable organisation in the country, including the Red Cross and the double cross. Who Owns My Business? “For my safety I have to carry life insurance, property insurance, liability insurance, accident insurance, burglar insurance, earthquake insurance, war risk insurance, unemployed insurance, and old age insurance. My business is so governed that I do not know who owns it. I am inspected,! suspected, rejected, examined and re-examined, informed, summoned, fined, commanded and compelled until I provide an inexhaustible supply of money for every known reason, desire or hope of man. Because I refuse to donate something or other, I am -boycotted, lied about, held up and held down and robbed until I am ruined.”