A great stir has been caused not only in the commercial word but among the public at large by the proposed "Juxury" tax of 15 per cent. on most articles, to be levied by the Municipality. No objection is raised to the taxing of very expensive and unnecessary goods, but that special rates should be paid for the purchase of practically everything, including hats, umbrellas, clothes, pots and_pans, cheap furniture, watches, books, music, soap, fruit, sweets, vegetables, flowers, birds, ete., seems unfair, The feeling of despondency seems justified also by the wholesale corruption practised by employees of Government trades, for instance, in tobacco productions, which is a State monopoly. Many millions have been squandered for the benefit of the worst kind of schiebers, and notwithstanding the large stocks of all sorts of smoking articles in official hands, they are still rationed, and apart from minimum quantities one can hardly secure a cigarette or an ounce of tobacco except through buying them at tremendous prices from illicit' traffickers. Thus the waiters of all the Vienna cafes have become notorious sellers of those There is another dark chapter in the voluminous book of present corruption. Many capable, but badly-paid. civil clerks, of the tax and similar offices in quit service and are engaged at much higher remuneration by the leading banks and other large commercial and_ industrial enterprises. They make use of their thorough knowledge acquired in the civil service to assist those establishments to evade high taxation by means of clever tricks, so that the real taxpayers are not the rich money-makers, but the impoverished middle-class.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.