THE MEMBER FOR ASHLEY DEFENDS HIMSELF.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2048, 16 September 1880, Page 3

THE MEMBER FOR ASHLEY DEFENDS HIMSELF.

Mr Moorhouso must have been considerably “riled” by Sir George Grey’s attack on him through interrupting the member for Thames when he addressed the House on the Property Assessment Bill. The member for Ashley is thus reported by the “New Zealand Times”:—“The hon. member for the Thames had often spoken about Wat Tylor, and made his comparisons, but he (the speaker) would sooner compare him to Jack Cade. He had gone to the people, and said ‘follow me, and I will exempt you from all taxation; follow me, and I will be your leader.’ And such leaders had worked nothing but public annoyance. He would exempt nothing—neither rings nor machinery—whatever property was, property ought to pay the tax. What was Murimotu and what was Patetere, but belonging to those who were seized of it. And yet Sir George Grey called it public estate. This laud was the property of the Natives, for whom fcir George in days gone by had so strongly spoken up. What was Murimotu to him (the speaker) ? If the hon. gentleman had any charge to make against him he would challenge him there and then for the appointment of a committee to inquire into it. Ho could not for the life of him tell what brought the hon. gentleman there, for he certainly did nothing to distinguish himself in the eyes of the colony. But ho did what he could to set class against class. Ho was always telling them that the rich were getting richer and the poor poorer ; he was always making charges in general against everybody, but never bringing charges specifically against any. It was a matter of regret to him that the hon. member for the Thames ever emerged from that privacy to which the Crown had relegated him. He had often wished to bring forward a motion to expose the rottenness of certain things in connection with that House, but among those motions there was none he should so much like to bring forward as one to show the rotten ascendancy of the hon, member for the Thames and his parasites.”