The Premier Basted

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 147, 9 June 1892, Page 4

The Premier Basted

A letter appears in the Southland Times from Sir John Hall, remarking 1 upon certain passages in Mr ; Ballance's speech at Invercargill. Sir John Hall says:— As a rule Ido not notice misrepresentations affecting me, but as this one is of a more ihan usnally audacious character, and comes from a Prime Minister, I will make an exception in his favour if you will grant me a small ppace in ■your columns. Mr Ballance says: " Sir John Hall has stated that some , of the farmers had ceased to improve because of the tax taken off improvements." If I had really done this I should, of course, have been talkingnonsense. I said nothing of the kind— what 1 did do at Leeston was to show that Mr Ballance attempted to impose on all improvements over £3000, not only the ordinary land tax, but also the graduated land tax. The graduated tax he was compelled to abandon. But he succeeded in imposing the ordinary land tax on all inprovements exceeding the above sum. I argued that the effect of this legislation must be to discourage improvements. If a landowner who had already improved to the extent ot £3000, went any further and took £1000 out of the bank and spent it on improving bis land, it furnished employment to working men, and in increasing the produce of the colony, this enterprising individual would be punished for doing so by the taxation on his £1000 being nearly doubled. This is undeniable. I contended that such legislation was a blunder, and would be a serious check to the development of the colony. I added — " It is within my own knowledge that this penalty placed by Parliament on a man for furnishing employment, together with the language heard from Ministers on public platforms, has led to the abandonment of improvements of considerable value," This is a very different statement to the -one attributed to me by the Premier, and is one which he would have found it difficult to answer. Mr Ballance's speech contains other statements concerning myself, for the exposure of which it is hardly necessary to trespass oh your space. I have given fair- specimen of his accuracy.^ It is a favourite practice of the Prime Minister's to make assertions on a public platform where he thinks himself safe from contradiction, which he wonld not make in the presence oi those to whom the facts of the case are known. We shall Boon meet where his allegations can be answered and we shall see whether tales will be repeated there with which it was attemped to impose on the electors of Invercargill.