CUTTING ATTACK ON VALUERS.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 9 August 1901, Page 3

CUTTING ATTACK ON VALUERS.

(our parliamentary rhportbr.)

Wellington, August 8. The member for Marsden evidently has a very poor opinion of the Government land valuers, and he spoke openly and feelingly on the subject, on Tuesday night. Many of them he said were men who had been regarded as failures and " dead beats, " and when one of them got a billet as valuer, ho presumed to tell a farmer who had been working on the land all his life what the unimproved value of his farm was. If the farmers did not accept their valuations, these men having the funds of the Government at their back, as many witnesses as they thought fit to swear to the valuation that was put on the land. That, said Mr Thompson, was the position tho land owner was put in this colony, and he went on to declare that you could hire men in New Zealand to go into an Assessment Court and give any evidence the valuer wishes to be given. They had no regard for the sacredness of an oath and looked upon perjury as no crime. "I say' 1 concluded Mr Thompson "that yon can get these men by the dozen and they are hired by the dozen." Tho Premier: I cannot credit it.