A TAX FOR IDLEES.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXII, Issue 9197, 16 August 1880, Page 2

A TAX FOR IDLEES.

1 It i 3 all very well to laugh at M. Griraud, who has brought in a bill for taxing all idle folks in France. Those who do so — and their-name is legion if counted on the Boulevards alone — are mostly under the delusion that the idea is original ; but M. Franoique Sarcey combats this impression, and makes out that the real author of the suggestion was Alexander Duraas. In his " Question d'Argent," the novelist introduces a politioal economist sighiag for the time when there will be established a " civil conscription." Whan wars have vanished from the scene, aud industrial arts have taken their place, all that society will require of her children will be, as this theorist declares, "the tribute of their intellectual capacities." As soon as a man is 21, the State will ask him, " What profession have you chosen ? " and if it finds that he neither has one nor intends to do any work, it will impose uponhimthenecessity of finding a substitute; that is to say, will exact from him a tax or fine for his idleness. In return for this payment he will be furnished with an " idler's certificate," the production of which will enable him to pass freely about the country. The idoa will not perhaps seem quite absurd to a business man in England who happens to walk down the " ladies' mile" at about one o'clock on any of these Maydays. But before it could be adopted there would be a decided difficulty in defining the term "idleness," and some curious problems would present themselves in deciding who was and who was not a work, ing man. Such a person as Mr Arch, who does a good deal of talking, aud is in one sense by no means idle, would net a little puzzle the inspectors of idleness, while there might be considerable doubts as to the position of a statesman out of office, a landowner engaged in improving his own estates, a director of rotten companies, and a workman out on strike. It would, perhaps, be as well in the first place to tax persons who are actually obnoxious to their fellow-creatures before proceeding to lay a burden "upon those who are merely harmless and unprofitable.