Exempted Income.

From the whole of these incomes available for taxation, there must be deducted the whole amount of such income received at the rate of not exceeding £200 a year by any one individual, whether single or the head of a family; but there must be added the total of electoral registration fees at £1 each, to be paid by any such exempted receiver, as a pledge of his citizenship. The miner and the labourer in other ways, who receives less than £200 a year, will thus be placed on an equality, so far as exercising influence over the Government by a vote in virtue of a certain contribution to its cost. But so long as an export duty is imposed on gold, the receiver of income from gold-mining labour alone must be exempted from any other income tax.

The daily labourer, who receives no more than 12s. 6d. a day for the whole 310 working days, will be free of all tax except £1 a year, and whatever contribution he may voluntarily make through the consumption of strong drink and tobacco, or the purchase of other superfluities. The daily labourer at 13s. for every one of the 310 days, will just exceed the exemption limit, and will have to pay £1 0s. 6d.

If the tax on all landed and other incomes above £200, together with the voting-right fees, should not amount to the £531,254 lost to the revenue by the total abolition of taxes on necessaries, I have further means to propose, which I consider neither oppressive nor unfair, of making the purchasers of waste land from both public and Natives contribute to the general cost of Government.