A UNIVERSAL INCOME-TAX.
[TO .T1111 EDITOR OP TUE " SP HOPATOIL:1
was much pleased to find in your able article on the financial position in the issue of November 21st that you advocate a oniversal Income-tax extending to all wage- earners,—say, from fifty pounds a year. Perhaps there was one argument yon.omitted,—namely, the essential interest of the republic,. which requires that what is done for the State should be done by the State, the whole State. Now we are unfortunately divided into classes, and now, more than ever, it has been put into the power of the majority to prey upon the minority for their own supposed benefit. I refer more particularly to the Old-Age Pensions Act, where we have only yet taken the first step. A great opportunity was here lost of conferring , pensions rather as a right than, now, as State charity, .and the class for whose benefit they were intended might then have well been asked. to contribute to them, by submitting (as I believe they readily would have).to a small Income-tax imposition. In this way there would have been an adequate check upon the growth of pensions. Now there is none, and already the small class of Income-tax payers are bearing the burden, for where is there hope of remission ? This was a matter foestatesmen rather than politicians, but perhaps it is not yet too late, on lowering the age-limit, to make pensions in this way contributory. Direct taxation brings home a sense of responsibility which no amount of pilules for the poor will ever do, whether you tax their tea or their corn, their tobacco or their beer.—I am, Sir, Sus., 4 Glenloch Road, Hampstead, N. W. EVELYN ANSELL.
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