AN APPEAL TO NE. SONAR LAW.
(To THE EDITOR OR THE " SPECTATE:m."1 SIR, In your interesting article under this heading in the issue of December 16th you suggest, among other methods of raising additional revenue, the advisability of increasing certain taxes on expenditure. I have nothing to say against these proposals, but it certainly occurs to me that, as a preliminary to such action, the corresponding taxes in Ireland should be levelled up to the rates now in force in Great Britain. You advocate an increase in the tax on male servants, on dogs, and on the scale of motor licences. In Ireland at present there is, so far as I know, no tax on male servants at all, and 2s. 6d. is paid for each dog, and, while the scale of motor licences is nominally the same as it is here, I have heard that (in the South at least) many motor-car owners pay nothing, and are never asked to pay, and that more conscientious people who tender payment are looked upon rather as a nuisance than otherwise. Then, again, Inhabited House Duty is not levied in Ireland, and this in itself must represent a largo loss of potential revenue. At one time Ireland may not have been able to pay taxation on the same scale as England and Scotland, but that is no longer so. In any case, the employment of male servants and the keeping of pet dogs and motor-cars are no more necessaries of life in Ireland than elsewhere, and should be paid for on the same scale by Irishmen as by other people.
Recently we had an unedifying exhibition of political wire- pulling in connexion with the Order prohibiting the running of excursion trains in connexion with Gaelic League football matches. The agitation apparently failed at the time, but it must have been more successful than appeared on the surface, for it was announced a day or two ago in the Times that the obnoxious Order had been rescinded. We have, therefore (if the Times report is well founded), the extraordinary spectacle, on the one hand, of a threatened reduction in England and Scotland of from one-third to one-half on the existing services, and the probable shutting up of many small stations, and, on the other, the maintenance, under the blessing of the Government, of a special service of excursion trains to carry spectators (mostly, no doubt, of military age, soldiers in the uniform of " the English King " being, of course, rigidly excluded) to football snatches in Ireland! Truly it pays to be an Irishman—especially a disloyal one !- [The argument that Ireland is a. poor country, and therefore ought to be relieved of these taxes though paid by the rest of the United Kingdom, is ridiculous. They are not taxes paid by poor men. An Irishman with 11,000 a year is not less well off than a man with £2,000 a year in England, but a good deal better off, because prices rule lower in most luxuriea. Yet the Englishman probably pays some £15 a year more taxes than the Irishmen with the some income.—Ea. Spectator.]
Previous page
