TOPICAL READING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9544, 16 July 1909, Page 4

TOPICAL READING.

OUR FINANCIAL PJ3iriO\. It is exceedingly unfortunate that it should be necessary to retrench af t?r the first dull year the Dominion has experienced for nearly two decades, and that the number of those deprived of employment by the dulness of trade and wnnt of money in private business should be increased by employees discharged by the State. The responsibility lies with the Government, which has wantonly plied up expenditure for years, says the "Southland Times," and which has culpably failed to use the unrivaled opportunities which a long period of prosperity placed within its grasp. The Government has sown the wind and is now reaping the whirlwind, and before the harvest '*s fully gathered it will probably be found even mure bitter and humiliating than it is to-day.

GERMAN FINANCE PROPOSALS

In connection with the German Imperial finance proposals—which aim at providing new taxation equal to £25,000.000 per annum, tho taxea for which caused a breach in the

Conservative-Liberal B!o:k—a compromise was arranged which indicated tht the Agrarians and Protectionists have retained a tight grip on the machinery of taxation. Under the compromise the required £25.000,000 per annum will be raised in the following proportions from the seveal groups of taxes:—Duties on beer, spirits, tobacco, mat:hes, lighting apparatus, wine and coffee, £16,000,000; a tax on railway tickets, maintenance of the sugar tax, and increase of the matricular contributions, £4,000,000; duties on various articles of import, on slocks and shares, and on financial transactions, £ 5,000,000. The matricular contributions (i.e., contributions by States to the Federal Government, assessed according to population at a rate per head lixed annually by the Imperial Budget) will be increased tolOd per head of population, unconditionally. The North Herman "Gazette," a semi-official journal, announced last week that in consequence of the attitude of the Reichstag towards the Government's taxation proposals, Prince von Bulow had irrevocably resolved to resign immediately after the question of finance reform has been settled.