The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. TUESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1883. The Property Tax Debate and its Sequel.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 1015, 7 August 1883, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. TUESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1883. The Property Tax Debate and its Sequel.

If it is an absolute necessity that the time of the Legislature should be wasted in the discussion of votes of want-of-confidence, which the Opposition are continually bringing forward, it would •ertainly be an advantage if they could

be dismissed as rapidly as was the case on Tuesday last. Mr Montgomery must have recognised long ago that the party of which he is nominally the chief is in a minority in the House, and yet he will persist in preventing the business of the session from proceeding by introducing motions that have not the remotest chance of passing. Noone probably expected that the debate on the Property Tax Bill would be a very brilliant affair, but the utter collapse which took place caused some degree of surprise. The relative merits of a property tax and a land tax have been so often discussed that theie seems to be nothing more to be said on either side, but Parliamentary orators are not to be deterred from talking simply by the fact that they have nothing new to say. The member for Akaroa travelled over the old ground, repeating the arguments that had been refuted time after time, and his speech was duller and more wearisome than even his utterances are wont to be. The Opposition would have us believe that the people are dissatisfied with the present system of taxation, while the truth is that those who take any interest in the matter are fully aware that it is simply a party question. If the Government had suggested that an impost should be made upon income and land, the Opposition would have been in favor of a property tax, and would have fought just as strenuously for the latter as they are now doing for the former.

We do not know whether it had been arranged that the member for Auckland City West should follow Mr Mont gomery in the debate, but if it was pre-concerted a more unhappy choice could scarcely be conceived. Even had the Opposition had a good case the speech delivered by Mr Dargaville on this oc casion would have damned it utterly. This gentleman is fond of boasting to his constituents that he belongs to neither party in the House; he is a law unto himself, and this gives him the right of abusing the Government or the Opposition as the mood holds him. A member of this kind can have no possible influence, as he has no sense of responsibility, the only feeling excited by his speeches in the minds of sensible men is of wonder that a constituency can be found capable of returning such a representative. Mr Dargaville, in this instance, showed more than his accustomed intemperance. He had evidently come down to the House intent upon creating a sensation, and it must be admitted that he succeeded in this, although it will hardly be remembered to his credit. Mr Dargaville did not by any means confine himself to the question at issue, namely, whether a land tax should be substituted for a property tax, but proceeded -to attack the entire financial policy of the Government. His principal bugbear was the Bank of New Zealand, and he did not hesitate to declare that the Treasurer was simply the willing tool of that institution. As for the Premier, the member for Auckland West distinctly formulated a charge against him that he had received, the sum of from the Bank for services in getting the Legislature to pass a loan consolidation Act. The plain English of these accusations is that the principal members of our present Government have been guilty of conduct that, if proved, should debar them from holding a seat in any representative Assembly. Whether the monstrous speech delivered by Mr Dargaville disgusted even those whom he was supposed for the instant to be supporting we know not, but at all events, with the solitary exception of Mr Turnbull, not a single Opposition member attempted to prolong the debate, and nothing was left but for the Treasurer to reply. This he did by pointing out clearly that Mr Dargaville had either deliberately misstated facts, or had shown an amount of ignorance that was astounding in one who aspires to the leadership of a political party. The issue of the debate so far as the Property Tax Bill was concerned was never in doubt, and the division list showed that the Government measure was favored by a majority of sixteen. But although the want of confidence motion was thus easily disposed of, it was impossible for Major Atkinson to allow the reckless charges of gross corruption that had been made by the jaunty member for Auckland West to pass unnoticed. Accordingly the battle was renewed on Friday, when the Treasurer brought forward a motion to the effect that a Select Committee should be appointed to enquire into the truth of the allegations made by Mr Dargaville, that those in office had for years been using their political position, not for the good of the colony but for the advantage of a particular banking institution. The point at issue was plain enough. If the charges were justifiable, Major Atkinson and the Premier should no longer occupy their seats, while if it was shown that Mr Daroaville’s accusations were unfounded he should be expelled from the House as a slanderer. For the credit of the colony it was necessary that the matter should be settled, but it was evident from the first that the Opposition, which had been so ardent in their applause of the member of Auckland West, were by no means anxious that the debate should go on. Mr DeLautour at the outset raised a technical objection, buttheSpeakerruled against him, on the ground that the principal parties in the matter were desirous of appealing to the House and he would, therefore, not interpose. One would have thought that when Mr Dargaville had been shown that the hypotheses upon which he founded his charges were without foundation in fact, he would have had the manliness to have retracted what he had said. But instead of this, he declares his intention to stand by his words, although he refuses to accept the interpretation put upon those words by the men he had so grossly slandered. To give him his due, Mr Dargaville has some skill as an orator, and in argument he possesses a veritably Hudibrastic power of splitting hairs. In the course of the debate Mr Joyce characterised the defence as one which had pleased the House immensely, a remark that may be taken to mean that the members were moved to laughter at frequent intervals during the speech. It is on occasions like these that a representative with no sense of the responsibility attaching to words uttered in a deliber-

ative assembly can secure a transient success by treating ah important question simply as a huge joke. Mr Dargaville attempts to excuse himself for haring brought reckless charges against the Premier and Major Atkinson on the score of his nationality, as if the fact of his being an Irishman justified him in promulgating falsehoods. It remains to be seen, however, whether the Committee appointed to enquire into the conduct of the member for Auckland West will take the same opinion of his conduct that he does himself. At any rate it seems highly probable that he will either have to eat his words or to resign a position that in the opinion of all right-thinking men he has disgraced.