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KOBE CANADIAN TRACK TAXATION TALK. A r"l ort is in circulation that at the next session of the nonunion parliament, a private member will introduce a bill providing for a ten | er cent rake-off from tin- miituels. and legalizing only that form of wag-ring on incorporated race tracks. The private member may save himself the trouble, even it any one had such intention, which is much to lie doubted, f r the matter is beyond the jurisdiction or Bearer of the federal parliament. The idea is liv no means : w warn. As long ago as when Ike lalo Sir David Mills was minister of justice, a proposition for K thing similar was made, and without hesitation the minister replied that the suggestion was iiu|Missible "f adoption, as it was a matter ciitirelv rwOTrraiag the provinces. They ;,l,, Mtuld loih-ct tee: fr.mi racing. The Dominion c.uid las lis- horws and could levy on the incomes ..] the jooki | ■• -!ubs by means of a general tax on ■ •rpoiate aiid individual incomes, but the conduct of the racing itself was a matter for regulation by the province alone. Several of the provincial gov-eruiuents have h::d :• like pro|iosition placed liefore the**, but it has bc.-n thoiiglit wisest to BJBM funds liv a license fee. as in Ontario. wlMTe.it is five hundred lollars a lay. rather than by directly levy-i US oil the wagering, which it has lieen held would b. "to re - gnir.e Intting. just as if that was not done bv licensing the meetings with all their attach nioiils The Dominion government did the same thins when Sir John Thompson, then premier and nilubcter of justice, passed a clause exempting in- ■ oi|M rated BBC* tracks from the pains and penalties ! rorlded in the criminal rode for keeping a place ecordiii;T to the report that has gone abroad it is not only the mutnels that arc to l e taxed, but. if thev -ire not made exclusive, also, the bookmakers. The latter, like the • • ■■••- can ba taxed on their incomes but not on their business, that is if their ;,i,..,;ii«*s an lie ascertained and their definite habitation !«• meed to this country. As. however, like •o tors actresses. singers. baseball players and locker* they would be rather hard to get at. And for ilio provinces to tax them on their business would in- to raise I ha l aforcim-nl awed parrot rry of • nocnized gambling." The report referred ba also says* that the money bet in Canada, even in times, amounts to between seven ami I bene war eighl million dollars. That sounds large, but when it is taken into coiisidorat that it covers three or our hundred days of racing, and some three thous ami races it does lot ap|«ear so enormous, but at that it i-- a gross exaggeration— an exaggeration that could stand reduction by two thirds to come within reasonable lioiiud*. Such a statement as here referred to would seem to indicate that a „M- reuiiired somewhere else than ill ronuec- tio! with the war. II. P. Po-d in Montreal Mail.
