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the difficulties involved in supervising all entries which are liable to contain weed-seeds, but, nevertheless, the Department of Agriculture must provide this supervision by specialist Inspectors at the principal ports. Our farming heritage is too important to be jeopardized by the careless introduction of the seeds of a weed like saffron thistle in a shipment of fowl-wheat. The Department of Agriculture should take all practical steps to make it impossible for weed-seeds to enter this country in any imported lines. 14. LAND-TAX Land-tax was originally imposed to force closer settlement by breaking up the big estates. It was a graduated tax for that purpose. If subdivision is required to-day, there are alternative means of doing it other than by the land-tax, which has become redundant. It offends against one of the fundamental principles of good taxation in that it is not levied according to the ability to pay. In fact, those land-holders who perhaps could pay most, pay little at all, while struggling farmers on third class-land necessarily held in large areas are saddled with bigger payments. The amount of tax collected is approximately £1,000,000, of which half is paid on farming land. If the tax is removed, the greater portion of it will be recovered again in income-tax. We recommend, therefore that the land-tax on farming land be abolished. 15. INCOME-TAX We fully support the principle that taxation should be levied fairly over all the people, including farmers. However, we believe that the method of levying income-tax must be such as to encourage sufficient being put back into the land to maintain it in good " heart " and to increase our national production. It is to ensure this that we make the following recommendations about the anomalies in the present method of tax assessment (i) Deductible Allowances foe Maintenance We would like to draw attention to the following provision in the Australian legislation ± Section 75, Income Tax Assessemtnt Act— Allowance as a deduction of certain classes of capital expenditure—namely, expenditure incurred on : (a) The eradication or extermination of animal or vegetable pests from the land. (b) The destruction and removal of timber, scrub, or undergrowth indigenous to the land. (c) The destruction of weed or plant growth detrimental to the land. (d) The preparation of the land for agriculture. (e) Ploughing and grassing the land for grazing purposes. (/) The draining of swamp or low-lying land where that operation improves the agricultural or grazing value of the land. (g) Preventing or combating soil erosion on the land otherwise than by the erection of fences. (k) The construction of dams, earth tanks, underground tanks, irrigation channels, or similar structural improvements, or the sinking of bores or wells for the purpose of conserving or conveying water for use in carrying on primary production on the land, and (i) The construction on the land of levee banks or similar improvements having like uses. Dates of provision : (a) to (/) granted by Bruce-Page Government, 22/12/27 (g) to (?') granted by Chifley Government, 3/7/47.