The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1898-04-01
POLL rAX-THE OTHER SIDE.

One of the first objections to the
abolition of the poll tax is summed
up i'm the words, can we afford it?
1t amounts to forty-five thousand dol
lars per annum i'm round numbers, or
ninety thousand for the two years.
The people are accustomed to pay it,
there is no greater difficulty in col
lecting il than there would be to col
lect the remaining four dollars of per-
sonal taxes which would remain. In
fact the same machinery which is us
ed to collect five dollars a head from
the people, would have to be used to
collect the reduced amount, so that
the government would get ninety
thousand dollars less for the present
expenditure for collection.
But in reply to this the Minister of
Finance says the prospective revenue
is such that the treasury can afford
this reduction. in fact, if we throw
off this ninety thousand dollars, our
revenue will yet be larger at the end
of the two years than it is now. The
rent roll of the Government is becom-
ing more productive year by year.
More nominal leases keep falling in,
and the lands are relet at greatly en-
HANGED values. Then there will be
considerable sales of land. Taking
;,,.. a
knowledge how careful and conserva-
tive a financier he is, it can at once be
argued that we can afford it.
Another objection raised is that the
Constitution says that each member
of society = = shall be
obliged to contribute his proportion
or share to the expense of (his) pro-
lection" and it is argued that remov-
ing the poll tax is unduly reducing
his share. But it was shown yester
day that the poorer man the more
out of proportion was he taxed and
that man working for twenty dol
lars month was paying at rate
nearly three times greater than the
large holder of land. Besides the man
has his road and school taxes left,
and even were these abolished he
would still be paying indirect taxes
upon what he buys from the stores,
for it is the customer who. upon each
purchase pays his quota towards the
licenses and the duties charged by the
Government.
very fairly met, there is yet another
which does not admit of such solu-
ton. This is the Asiatic problem.
The mass of voters are quite ready to
relieve the Hawaiians and the Portu-
guese, but they see no necessity for
giving relief to the Asatic. The
question of how to relieve those who
need the assistance, and yet not do an
injustice to the country is a serious
and difficult one.
Besides there is another phase of
taxes of certain of their contract la
borers. and seeing that it is consid-
cred that the large corporations do
not, as yet, contribute their proper
share to the public funds, no set of
men feel disposed to make them *
present of these taxes, which amount,
according to a calculation made by
Representative Gear, to somewhere in
the neighborhood of ten thousand
dollars.
To these latter objections answers
are not so ready. Later debate and
careful thought may bring about some
suggestion which will enable the Leg
islature to do, what The Star consid-
ers an act of justice to the poor man.
The subject will not come up before
May 2nd, so there is ample time for
full consideration of the matter. both
in and out of the House. That a poll
tax is a bad tax there is no doubt.
That we can afford to do away with
it is asserted by the Minister of F.
nance. Whether in doing away with
it we shall do right in one direction
and do wrong in another, is evidently
open to argument.