POLITICAL REFORM ASSOCIATION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1605, 9 July 1887, Page 3

POLITICAL REFORM ASSOCIATION.

XO THE EDITOB. V " Sir, —lf any of your readers would like to assist m forming a Political Reform Association for ABhburton, on the same lines as, but not necessarily with identi cally the same programme as the Political | Reform Association of Christohurch, and will communicate with mo on the matter, I shall be glad to co-operate with them. Looking at the magnitude of the issue 3 now before the electors, and of *lhe far-reaching consequences which will follow upon the answers to those issues the amazing political apathy which we m Aahbinton are displaying, is not very creditable to us ; and it must not be for gotten that if we permit the Government to saddle us with - £300,000 a year additional taxation (of which Sir Robert Stout has already admitted that £80,000 is totally unnecessary), Protective Custom a duties, a graduated property tax, and the other monstrosities of the Ministerial fiaancial policy, without a word of remonstrance, our silence will assuredly hereafter be cited as a proof of our assent to these proposals ; and, further, as an assent to the still heavier taxation which lies concealed m that policy, I am, &c, C. W. Pcbnell. Bth July.