Duties.

No Increase in Papuan Stamp Duties.

From Our Own Correspondent.

Pt. Moresby, Nov. 20.

A CORRESPONDENT in your October issue declared that the Papuan ad ministration had increased the fees payable on the registration of companies and had also added four per cent, prim age and doubled all the Stamp Duties.

Your correspondent also challenged a statement that telephone work in the Territory was done very cheaply by na tive labour and declared that when he wanted to put in a telephone in a build ing two miles from Port Moresby, the Administration wanted £200 cash down and five years’ rent in advance.

I am authorised to say that the maxi mum registration fee for a company is £50 and always has been £50. A stamp duty was introduced in 1929, but it did not impose a maximum which caused much embarrassment in connection with the registration of big, foreign com panies. Consequently in 1931, a maxi mum of £100 in stamp duties was fixed.

So far as telephones are concerned, the Papuan Government, like all other owners of telephone systems, charges subscribers the cost of connection; while the yearly subscription is five guineas.

If anyone were charged £200, the reason was that that was the cost of making the connection. The yearly charge is al ways made in advance—here, as else where.

Your correspondent, perhaps, is writ ing of something that happened years ago. Rent would not be charged for five years in advance unless there was a very special reason for it.