SOMETHING ABOUT TAXATION.
The monastery gardens of Trooditissa at the close of July exhibited the
great fruit-producing power of the soil and climate at this high
altitude, but at the same time they were examples of the arbitrary and
vexatious system of Turkish taxation, which remains unchanged and is
still enforced by the British authorities. I shall describe this in
detail, and leave the question of possibility of development under such
wholesale tyranny to the judgment of the public. It is difficult to
conceive how any persons can expect that Europeans, especially
Englishmen, will become landowners and settle in Cyprus when subjected
to such unfair and irritating restrictions.
NO PRODUCE CAN BE REMOVED FROM ANY GARDEN UNTIL IT SHALL HAVE BEEN
VALUED FOR TAXATION BY THE GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL APPOINTED FOR THAT
PURPOSE, at the rate of 10 per cent. ad valorem.
At first sight this system appears incredible, but upon an examination
of the details our wonder ceases at the general absence of cultivated
vegetables and the propagation of superior qualities of fruits. If the
object of the government were purposely to repress all horticultural
enterprise, and to drive the inhabitants to the Nebuchadnezzar-like
grazing upon wild herbs, the present system would assuredly accomplish
the baneful end. The Cypriotes are called indolent, and are blamed by
travellers for their apathy in contenting themselves with wild
vegetables, when their soil is eminently adapted in the varying
altitudes and climates for the production of the finest qualities of
fruits and green-stuffs.
