GENERAL MEWS

Levin Daily Chronicle, 8 October 1918, Page 1

GENERAL MEWS

JAPAN'S fifOOME TAXINCREASES 20 PER GENT. Japan having decided upon an in-crease-^in-her—navy that involves the expenditure of £30,000,000, spread over six years, a general increase of taxation has been proposed, and it will probably be carried out. The income tax is to be raised in a way to bring an aggregate addition to 20> per cent., the increase being graduated so as to be only 10 per ccnt. upon ihe smallest incomes and 50 per cent, upon the largest. The minimum incoino tax will be £50. A warprofits tax is to be initiated on both business profits and on incomes, but no personal incomc of less than £300 a year will be taxod on account of its having risen during the war, and in this way the wages of working people and moderate salaries de not have to pay for the wages increases of -war time. Higher than £300, personal incomes must pay 15 per'cent, of increase and companies that have increased profits must pay 20 per cent, tax -upon the increase. CURLYHAIR NOT WANTED. Curly hair is ' not" admii-ed in Japan. Thefe are many people who have curly hair, but it is difficult to say how many, for Japanese ladies try as hard to straighten their hair as English ladies do to curl theirs. In these modern days various preparations for straightening hair are sold in drug stores, and there are beauty parlours in the principal street of Tokio which advertise to "straighten hair by new devices for making it lasting straight—and no injury to the hair." CONTR®L YOUR CONDUCT. The worst kind of unhappiness, as" well as the greatest amount of it comes from our conduct to each other. If our conduct, therefore, were under the control of kindness, it would be nearly the opposite of what it is, and so the state of the world would ba almost reversed. We are for the most part unhappy because the world is an unkind world. But the world is only unkind for the lack of kindness in the individuals who compose it.—Frederick William Faber. ALLIES FOOD -SUPPLY. As an indication of the volume of conservation effected by the American people, the shipments of meat, dairy, and fat products generally to the Allies for the whole fiscal year 1916 to 1917 were 2,166,000,0001b, but for the year ended 1917 to 1918, they wore over 3,000,000,0001b, or, roughly speaking, there was an increase of 800,000,0001b in the shipment of these vital products during a period when there was not a larger number of animals in the country than in the previous year. That increase represents the efforts being made in America to economise, and is full of promise for the future. NEW VEGETABLE BUTTER. Shea butter, the reddish oil of the African shea tea (Butyrospernum Parkii), is one of several, vegetable butters that are now of unusual interest to makers of margarine, chocolate, canities,' and soajp. The sweet and wholesome pulp of the nut is much prized by the natives, and is said to be nearly two-thirds butter. Great Britain controls the source of supply. OBSCURING THE VIEW. "/Conflicting duties?" repeated the old professor sternly- to one who used the familiar phrase in excuse for something left undone. "There are only two duties in all the universe—our duty to God and our duty to man, and the j first always includes the- second;, they can't conflict any" more than can living and breathing. When two courses of' action conflict, the one" is a duty and the other isn't, and that is all there is about it. If we lived more, simply, our i spiritual eyesight would be clearer. We wTap up our deeds and our motives in a lot of flimsy reasonings and imaginations, until we can't toll what they are. ■ BURNING BANK NOTES. What will be tho fate of -the first edition of'Treasruy £1 notes, which are being withdrawn from circulation (asks the London 1 " Daily Chronicle ") ? Will the paper shortage lead to their, being pulped or will frigid finance reserve for them the fate which the Bank metes out to its own aristocratic notes? When the once-familiar fivers or tenners are paid into the Bank they are never issued again. They " are stored away for seven years, and on the Friday afternoon 365 weeks after the notes were returned to Threadneedlo Street,, tho Old'. Lady cremates them in a special closed furilaec. '- This burning to ashes of paper-which represents millions sterling takes' place at- the Bank every Friday. "■ --ENEMY SON'OF BRITISH -.PRll^e'fiSS. Claremont, the flue old' mansion r'and property at in England, where the gfeatly lamcnted-and -once tremendously popular Princess Charlotte, daughter of' George IV.,t spent her married life, has been turned into a-girls' school under the pressure of war. The Duchess of Albany owns it now, whose son, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, is married to a niece of the German Emperor, and is in tho war against us. There is pretty strong feeling against permitting him to inherit the beautiful property at his mother's death. A BUND MAN'S FLIGHT. The first blind man to make an air flight is Sir Arthur Pearson, who was taken aloft for an hour by Mr GrahameWhite. He afterwards confessed that he enjoyed the exhilarating experience of rushing through space at 80 miles an hour. Mr Grahame-White told him that they were going to nose-dive down and asked him not to be afraid. He did not feel anything but the most pleasurable sensation, which reminded him of skiing over vast snow slopes in the Alps in days long ago.