The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1897-05-21
PERTINENT QUERY
Correspondent Asks for More Light
on Local Affairs.
ACTION OF GOVERNMENT ON TAXES
Quiet Methods of Proceed
TIRE DiS1iked.
Why Not Notify Voters ?-H ow
Are Laws Set

MIR. EDITOR:-No good can come
from captions criticism of the admins
! tration; yet the average citizen has
an indefeasible right to know that the
! policy pursued or the measures adopt
ed, have some solid basis of right and
! justice. The Legislature is not in ses-
| sion and there is no opportunity for
| inquiry and discussion, except through
| the columns of the daily paper, the
ever open court for public investiga-
| ton. No one would claim that ours
| is paternal Government, in which the
| discussion of public matters, and the
! investiture of responsibility, is placed
! unreservedly in the hands of the heads
of the Government. Ours is a Govern
of the people by the people; and every
citizen has personal interest in the
decision of questions of public policy,
or in the exercise of Executive auth
GRITTY.
The muddle into which the enforce
ment of the taX-Iaw has brought us,
is a matter of establishment and con-
Germ to many taxpayers. Why cannot
this important function of the Gov
eminent the semi-annual taX-gather
ing. be conducted on business prin
ciple? Who not send out tax bills as
does the Superintendent of Water
works?
If the Government wishes to call in
certain bonds, it carefully advertises
numbers, dates, amounts for months
beforehand. Why should not the citi-
zens have been notified that failure
TO pay their taxes before Jan. /, would
work a forfeiture OF their right of
suffrage? If a man cannot be deprived
of property rights except by due pro-
cess of law, how is it that this impOr
tant right of suffrage should be for
feited, by gross negligence on the part
of Government officials, quite as much
as by the paTdOnable ignorance of the
voter? One looks in vain through
the taX-law for any notification of the
penalty of a loss of the voting priv
ilege. 1t seems that it is a provision
Of the Constitution, designed to do
away with the Ubiquitous practice of
buying votes and voters just before
election But if the taX-cOllectOr is
careful to notify delinquents. that a
penalty of ten per cent. will be de-
manded on all taxes not paid before
Jan. Is, why should not the voters
have been also warned by the same
official authority that this still heav- |
Ter penalty would fall on all who did |
not pay before January list? Can any |
man. any Government, take advan- |
tage of it's own wrong-dOing to work |
injustice? Is not this a case
where the Executive can interfere, as
has been done to save merchants from
giving public account of their person
al affairs?
What, too, are the legal reasons for
this recent action of the executive.
some of the provisions of
the tax-law? What is the basis of the
made by the merchants? In
these days of limping justice, famed
as we'll as blindfolded, when the pres
sure is brought to bear more and more
heavily on one class in the community.
on the worker rather than on the mani
pulator, it is well to have the right and
the wrong clearly presented. There is
a wrong way, it must be acknowledge,
that may be taken to secure unques-
toned rights. Methods of procedure.
it cannot be denied. must be scrutin-
lied, as viii as principles of action.
Surely in these days of constant dis
cUssiOn of economical problems. it is
too late TO raise objections to the prin-
ciple of the income tax. All taxes
must be paid out Of accumulations.
and the income tax is not a penalty
laid upon thrift; it is a proper equili-
zation of burdens in proportion TO in
comes. More and more are governments
this principle as their settled
policy. The British Chancellor of the
EXchequer, said last month, in allus-
ion to the changes of the sixty years
since the beginning of Victoria's reign.
that then y per cent of the rev
enUe was derived from taxes on COM
mOdities. now only II per cent. Taxes
on income and on property have sup
planted the old methods. Annuling
taxes and lodging taxes are not modes
of procedure which wealth can always
practice with immunity No reasons
seem to have been given on either
side. Executive functions take the
place of legislative and judicial func-
tons: and this is justifiable for good
reasons occasionally: not necessarily
a usurpatiOn of power: why not give
reasons. and show the rightfulness Of
these queer proceedings? Are they
"On the square?" CTVTS