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War Tax and Rural Stamps
War Tax stamps, raising money for the prosecution of a war, were first issued by Spain in 1874 – 1877. Inscribed IMPUESTO DE GUERRA (war tax), they were obligatory on all correspondence, the money being used for the Carlist Wars. War tax stamps were again issued in 1898 during the Spanish American War. In several cases, these stamps were continued long after the war and some were in use as late as 1920.
The idea was revived in the British Commonwealth in 1915. In February that year, Canada issued three postage stamps overprinted WAR TAX. Though intended for fiscal purposes, there was some ambiguity in the circular announcing their issue and they were, in fact, postally used. Later in 1916, one cent and two cent stamps inscribed WAR TAX were issued for compulsory use on correspondence, in addition to the normal postage. In 1916, stamps combining postage and war tax were issued.
Stamps overprinted WAR TAX or WAR STAMP were issued by a number of British colonies: Fiji, Dominica, St Helena, St Lucia, Grenada, St Vincent, Antigua, Jamaica and British Honduras (1916), Montserrat, Virgin Islands, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos and the Cayman Islands (1917), and the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Bahamas, Bermuda, British Guiana, Gold Coast and Malta (1918). Surprisingly, the mother country never issued any war tax stamps, but the postal rates were raised by a half-penny in February, 1918, allegedly as a temporary wartime measure. Outside the Commonwealth, the only war tax stamps were issued by Liberia in 1918. No stamps for this purpose were issued during the Second World War.
Zemstvo stamps were issued in many part of Tsarist Russia, the word meaning ‘rural’. The Russian Imperial Post only served the cities and major towns but in 1864, local authorities were permitted to establish networks of postal services in the rural areas and to connect them with the imperial posts. The first zemstvo post was established at Vetlonga in1864, but no stamps were issued. The first stamps were issued at Schlusselburg in 1865. By a decree of 3rd September, 1870, the zemstvo posts were allowed greater freedom in their choices of design and, from then until the Bolshevik Revolution (when the last surviving services were suppressed); several thousand zemstvo stamps were produced. They include the world’s rarest stamp (Kotelnich) and some of the oddest shapes – ovals (Vessiegonsk and Luga), diamonds (Dmitrov and Pskov) and circulars (Kasimov and Maloarchangelsk). The zemstvo services gradually died out between 1900 and 1917.
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