The Sheep Tax.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVI, Issue 43080, 11 April 1907, Page 2

The Sheep Tax.

WHY NOT ABOLISH IT ?

The Union has, for some lime past, been protesting against the imposition of the sheep lax. Nobody seems to know the justification for this particular tax; yet the Government continues to collect it, and if a settler defaults he is promptly hauled up before a Magistrate. Only the other day a small sheep-farmer informed us that he was a few days behind in the payment of the tax, and a constable called upon him with a “bit of blue.” Asked what the offence was, the limb of the law declared that be did not known This was the first he had hoard of a sheep tax. The farmer consulted his solicitor in the matter. The solicitor asked what it was all about. What was the slieep-tax ? He had never heard of such a thing before. And it is not to be wondered at, that the constable, and the lawyer, and the town-dweller generally are unacquainted with the tax The sheeo-owner has paid it for years, certainly under protest, but without a murmur. The time has ar« rived when this inequitable imposition should be wiped out. As a correspondent points out in a recent issue, the tax was introduced years ago, to defray the cost of stamping out seab in sheep. Since tho country has been declared free from seab, there can be no justification for the continuance of the tax. Tt cannot reasonably be urged that the sheep-owner should contribute tho cost of maintaining the Agricultural Department and its officials. The maintenance of this Department is a rightful charge upon the consolidated revenue, fer disease, whether in sheep or cattle, affects the whole community. It is in the interests of the dairy farmer and the agriculturist, as much as that Of the sheep-owner, that any inequitable charge upon the land should be removed, and for this reason we trust to see the various branches of the Union entering emphatic protests through the members for their respective districts.—“ Farmers’ Advocate.”