The whole question must be looked at from the point of view of the Australian, who would be horrified at our system, under which indigence is assumed to be the result of idleness and improvidence and relief is offered under the most degrading conditions, and expects his Government to do something to relieve the misery caused by scarcity of employment. In South Australia, where adult suffrage and payment of the members of both { 15} Houses have made the working classes masters of the situation, they can compel the Ministry to pay attention to their wishes. A step in the right direction, was taken when Village Settlements were substituted for temporary relief works; but any future scheme, while affording to men the opportunity of regaining a position of independence, should compel them to prove their worthiness by their own individual exertions.
The wide application by the Australasian Provinces of the principle of State action renders them especially liable to violent fluctuations of prosperity and adversity. As young countries they have borrowed largely for purposes of development, and have constructed expensive public works which have greatly increased the demand for labour. During the recent years of depression the Government have been obliged to discontinue their operations, and have offered less employment at a time when the labour market was already overstocked owing to the contraction of private enterprise. Similarly in the case of revenue: the receipts from the railways, which are almost universally owned by the State, vary proportionately with the returns from taxation, which depend in their turn largely upon the condition of trade. They have fallen in South Australia from £1,229,598 in 1891-2 to £967,656 in 1894-5, with the result that when the community has been least able, owing to the diminished returns from other resources of revenue, to bear additional { 16} taxation, further taxes have necessarily been imposed to meet the interest upon the loans out of the proceeds of which the railways have been constructed. The Kingston Government, which took office in 1893, had to face a deficit of £200,000, and immediately set to work to restore order in the finances. This they attempted to do by retrenchment, reducing the expenditure by £100,000 per annum, and by the imposition of fresh taxation. Succession Duties, a tax on the unimproved value of land and an income tax had already been imposed, a distinction being made in the latter case, between incomes derived from property and incomes resulting from personal exertion; but the present Government were the first to introduce the progressive principle into the taxes on incomes and land values. This legislation has encountered, as might be expected, the strongest opposition from the richer members of the community, who protest that a feeling of insecurity is produced and capital driven out of the country, but it may be noted that South Australia in 1895 raised money at 3 per cent. upon exceptionally favourable terms. The Government were compelled to obtain further funds, and showed their desire to equalise the incidence of the additional taxes by lowering, in spite of the opposition of the Labour Party, the exemption from income tax from £200 to £125 and by increasing the duty on beer, spirits, and other articles of ordinary consumption. Income tax is { 17} at present at the rate of 4-½d. in the pound up to £800, and of 6d. in the pound above £800 of taxable amount resulting from personal exertions, and at the rate of 9d. and 1s. in the pound, respectively, on incomes from property. Incomes between £125 and £425 enjoy exemption on £125 of the amount. Taxpayers are required, under penalty of prosecution for perjury for a false declaration, to furnish annually a statement of all forms of income that they have enjoyed during the past year, except in respect of any share or interest in a registered company; in this case the tax, at the rate of a shilling in the pound, is deducted by an officer of the company before payment of the dividends to shareholders. The higher rate is not paid on either form of income unless it, separately, exceeds £800. The tax on the unimproved value of land is ½d. in the pound up to, and 1d. above, the capital value of £5,000, and is increased by 20 per cent. in the case of absentee owners. A general assessment of all the lands in the Colony is made triennially, each person's property in each district or township being treated separately. The assessments are then sorted alphabetically, in order to discover the total holding of each individual which is the basis upon which the higher or lower rate of taxation is imposed.