FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 65, 8 June 1927, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By the LOOK-OUT MAN.

A TAX ON HENS In this blessed country, wherein, we are assured, the people are the lowest-' taxed of any British community, what the Government fails to take the local bodies annex. The latest additional tax on the hundred-and'one existing irritations deals a blow at domestic industry—at the instance of the Mount Albert Borough Council. which has determined that households that seek to be self-contained even to the matter, of eggs must pay a licence fee of one shilling for each hen-roost where there are 20 head of poultry. Nineteen hens and one duck, goose or turkey, will not allow of an escape, mark you! For further purposes of taxation, geese and turkeys will count as hens—so will roosters. The status of pigeons is not definitely decided, and it might be advisable to hide canaries out of sight. It is unofficially stated that the Mount Albert Council will shortly be calling for applications from those qualified to fill the important office of Inspector of Hen-roosts. SWIM OR DROWN The death of a man—and a seaman, too —within sight of scores of people and only a few yards off the end of a wharf, was a painful reminder this week to Aucklanders that it is likely,, at almost any time, for anybody to be so situated that it is a case of swim or drown. New Zealand has more drowning fatalities in proportion to its population, than any other country. It is strange that in a land girdled by the sea so few people can swim. Probably it would be hard to find a Maori who couldn't swim, but the number of white children who could keep their heads above water, supposing they fell into it, is comparatively few. Apparently New Zealand’s lamentable loss of young life annually by drowning can only be reduced by the compulsory teaching of swimming in the schools. This need has been emphasised year after year—and year after year the sea, the lake or the river takes its toll of valuable lives. “ONE A MINUTE” The ease with which an Australian storekeeper was robbed of 70,000 francs by a confidence trickster in Paris recalls the American adage “a mug is born every minute.”' Beware the charming smile of the perfectlytailored gentleman who places his local knowledge at your disposal in a. strange city. Even Auckland has a few of these nice fellows. Only the other day one of them chummed up with a new arrival in the saloon bar of a really respectable hotel. The talk turned on money. The newcomer had two Australian £lO notes. The obliging stranger explained that there was discount to be deducted from such tokens when changed—but he would change them without any such penalty, the sub-accountant at the bank being his particular pal. “Come with me!” The lamb went. “Wait here for a moment,” said the obliging stranger, taking the two “tenners” from his charge on the front steps of the Bank of New Zealand. Then he walked into the building—and out the back And the lamb waited!

TAX ON EFFORT Mr. W. J. Holds worth declares rat ing on unimproved values to be really a misnomer, since its valuations are raised to produce the revenue required. It had been said that rating on improved values was a tax on industry, but so were all taxes. The Look-out Man knows of another man who borrowed £IOO to put an additional room on his house, so as to provide accommodation for a growing family and remove that possibility of unhealthy overcrowding, with its “physical and moral perils,” which is so deprecated by social reformers. In the end, that room cost him £l5O, to pay which he had to deny himself and stint his family in food and clothing for a year. At the end of the year his rates were increased by £2. Does rating on the unimproved value do that sort of thing to the working man, Mr. Holdsworth? SWIMMING THE CHANNEL Soon it will be a distinction not to have swum the English Channel. The business was becoming so overdone that Mrs. Corson, who, in August, 1920, swam “La Manche,” had to be billed as the first married woman—or was it the first mother? —to accomplish the feat. Now Mrs. Corson aspires to be the first married woman (or mother) to make the return journey. She is plucky, at all events. But if this kind of thing goes on, we may expect to hear of the attempt of M. Myopia, the first cross-eyed man to swim the Channel, or of the stirring fight against heavy odds of Mile. Embonpoint, the first 20-stone Parisienne to take to the Channel, which, when that times arrives, will doubtless have traffic control men stationed on b;uoys at half-mile intervals.