NEWS TIMES
Money where it is

Let's take the tram together. We'll get off, if you like, at Aubervilliers.

—Hello, Mr. Market Gardener! Are your crops doing well? Haven't your frames and your cloches suffered from the hail? Your radishes and salads are nice and here are some very beautiful cauliflowers... You own, here, a 7-hectare plot of land of which not an inch is left fallow. So your business is good. Is it true that in this year 1924, you made no less than 100,000 francs of net profit?
— That could well be.
— But is it true that you only paid 308 francs in tax?
— I am complying with the law. The flat rate pays the farmers' tax.
— Okay. But do you know that next to you, on the other side of the road, such a small factory owner, such an industrialist, on a profit similar to yours, will pay 30 to 50% in taxes? 50,000 francs against 308 francs. Do you consider that to be fair?
-The law...
— Yes, no doubt; but it is because the law is poorly written that it could be reformed at a time when the need for money is so pressing for the Treasury. Yesterday, in the Chamber, a socialist, Mr. Compère-Morel, proposed to eliminate the flat rate for all agricultural operations whose profit exceeds one hundred thousand francs. It is already unfortunate enough that it is a socialist who takes the initiative for such measures whose obvious fairness should be imposed without debate in a Republican Assembly. But, naturally, a majority of agricultural deputies refused to take this reform into consideration. And the mass of taxpayers living off the land will continue to pay 25 million in contributions out of a total of 2,800 million, including 1 billion paid by industrialists, and 152 million by employees!
— Yes, it is understood, the peasant class deserves to be looked after. The land is depopulating. If we make its maintenance too difficult or too costly, we will alienate its last faithful. We are currently enduring the double servitude of foreign finance and foreign bread. It is to the cultivator, to the peasant that, through increased production and freed from all hindrance, from all fiscal hassle, we will owe our liberation...

— Is that what you are saying, gentlemen of the countryside? And, no doubt, you are not wrong if we look at your case in absolute terms. It is no less true that, relative to other taxpayers, to these unfortunate city wage earners, factory workers, small and large factory or business managers, you are much too liberally exempted. Yesterday, the only thing asked of the House was to reach the lords of the land, the feudal lords of beetroot, potatoes, wheat, vines, those who, moreover, make the law on the markets, withholding or releasing their harvest according to whether the price rises or falls. The majority of the House, in a selfish interest, refused to do justice. Let us note this without being surprised.

LEON BAILBY.