CORRESPONDENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 April 1917, Page 6

CORRESPONDENCE.

.TONES AND A MORTGAGE UNDER INCOME TAX. To the Editor. ■Sir—Back of beyond, down half a milo of mud road, in a four-roomed cottage lives my neighbor Jones. He dairy farms HlO acres under a mortgage of .CIKK). Everything Jones puts his"hand lo produces wonderfully. He in helped by Mrs. J., who has nine—stay, it is difficult to keep pace with this'production, ten children—and t'iic eldest is fifteen. Until two years ago they milked on shares; latterly 85 cows, ns'tho children came ou to help. Man and.woman were in their prime, and at pitch of a season Harry would rise sooner than four in the morning and trudge through reeking grasses over papa- hills to fetch the cow;. Jessie—it's another's name whom 1 fancy, I am a susceptible old salt wild brine still in my blood and it vill rose with the birds also, to get a cup of tea. A glance round the children alid she too went cut. At first she had picked her way daintily enough over stockyard, mud and through cowshed filth. As years rolled by she was less circumspect in her tripa along that via hictea. Heavy boots and muddy skirts hampered more t<lic tired ankles. Babies oame, sooner or later as the calves; she \A& simple and so ignorant of the urbanities and was she not solving that perplexity of economies—the labor problem, and all for Harry's sake! She was of sturdy "Darset" slock and a famous milker; would get up smiling from her twentieth cow to go to tho twenty-first. When things were vexing, wind and rain chill and ceaseless, and the mud awful, she got a bit down; a wail, real or fancied would break upon dull sense and numbed brain, from the last up yonder. Then she set her mouth, her head into the cow's flank), and strove to drown all in the drone and swish of milk. Nature was not to be so cheated. Into her breast came the ache responsive to the cry of the 'helpless hungry one in a too distant house. The monotonous task drove on for three hours or more, when came breakfast, and later Harry liCme from the creamery. Then he to his day's job and she to house work. Things about her were not so spick and span as she deserved; but neither are they ■ about the smartest guardsman after a week in Hie trenches. Four o'clock- was round ell too soon and milking to bo done over again; on till dark and after. Then last "to bed they creep, by whisp'ring winds soon lull'd asleep." This through long years, and the smile left Jessie's face—that smile has inspired me—and with it something of life's early glamor. Put away with her wedding ring, for they interfered with the milking. What an epic it would make! They twain with strong primary instincts pioneering the industr'al Juggernaut into the wilds. And the laurels? One d.iv Jones amazed u< all by buying a neighboring farm, anil, in his own words, '•'planking down «ix hundred good quid'' on the hargarn. The fir-It year they paid oil' a bill of sale and Hairy logged and slumped a piece of ground for turnips. How thc-e grew! Never were seen the like; ]OK>-lfl came. What a season it was! Gentle breezes, warm rains through sunny days the spring and summer long. How the grass grew and tho caws milked! They had come in fat off turnips aSid after a flue -p: 11 Jessie.\too, w-.i.s having one, quite in t'/.c course of Nature. Thiri were five lo help milk now, and Dai-y to tend the baby and cook the breaM'asi. and the cows Hushed long and tr.e te-r kept up, ail of which tended to much greater profit than the war price. So the >mi!e came back to Jessie's face, and tin- ring to her linger. l!)lli-17 proved not so profitable. The cows dried earlv. All the same lf ( arry would add to his hou-u. ami duriiig a fortnight o: building O'y T.uiou; the wife should go to her vetln's wlili tlv coungcr girls and the baby. No. ill had come. Since it was Jo-sie's iir-t' holiday, :-'!)(* was to have a costume, a real dr .•-•■maker's creation, and ride forth in a hired motor-car. Extravagant fellow with excess profit! The children came home from school with the mail, something in a big official envelope, whieh his wife put prudently aside until Harry had finished his dinner. Then she opens Kie letter. As she studies the maze offigures, a blank look conies into lire face. "What's it about?" asks the husband, filling his pipe. ''lt's a tax! the Tnconie Tax. It's eighty pounds!" she says with a gasp. 'Eighty pounds!" he repeats, slow to grasp a new idea, and an income tax is novel. He is of little speech and less gesture. Now his pipe is unlit and he is crumbling a. crust ami moistening his lips. Ho rose as his wife hurried the diildren oil to bed. The malls of the tiny shanty shake as He paces backwards and fmwards,the little room. He is of Lincoln breed, slow to wrath but at last he breaks out: "I'll not pay it; I'll see the in h— first! I'i't go to gaol scone;'!'' Jones' manner has not 'th.it repose which swamps the caste of the N.Z.G.0.. and this has hurt him. This is a sordid little tragedy of iow life, say those of the wealthy lower orders ruling this Dominion, How did it come about? Factory books had no records of payments to one for butter fat, prior to the war. and so under paragraph D. section 11, of an infamous Act, an omnisoont Commissioner at his sapient discretion had asse : sed Jones accordingly. Jones and his wife sat late that night in front of the hearth, and with its Home into ash-sank their crhht little hope of a new room, a new costume and Jessie's holiday trip. The upshot was that Jones went off to OiiigTedon next morning to see Mathe'on. the lawyer. In course of time a revised assessment came to hand and this is how it real: Jones' net income, £333 above his standard £257, shows excess profit A!7S. On this at nine shillings in the pound he pays a duty of i'3o. He pays neither special, ordinary, nor super tax. As to land tax I am uncertain, so is the Commissioner. But, says the wase-eiir-ner, the fellow has £3OO eiear of ail tax. Note that Jones has £7OO of capital invested in his "arm. on which he claims interest, say £SO. The balance .C 250 is the joint winnings of himself, his wile and five children—-foui teen shillings a week each on which to feed and clothe i.lu-mi-clvc-s, and m.akitrfu 'live linow ploved children. The true comparison is as between Jones and Brown and Smith scvora'lv. It stands thus: On unearned income of £101! over £3OO exemption, Brown pa.vs £22 10s or lod in the £. On £sl) above the exemption unencumbered Smith pays £i:i or 17s -Id in the £. On £l).j over exemption Smith with a mortgage of £lOl.lO va.vs £3l or Ms in the £. He is not "unique''—not or 11. korangi's elect! Of necessity he was a shirker, since from the Department in a fortnight Matheson could only get two out of 20 needed forms. Excess profit was.due to his energy, land- development and climatic' circumstance,,little to j war-