PATEA MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1880. PROPERTY INQUISITION.

Patea Mail, Volume VI, Issue 538, 26 June 1880, Page 2

PATEA MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1880. PROPERTY INQUISITION.

Thk official quandary anent those Property Tax papers is getting worse. What arc the Government doing ? The papers wore required, under a penalty, to be “ in” by the end of June, and the month ends next Wednesday. The Government promised, in a Parliamentary sense, to modify the vexatious details of the inquisition papers. Have they done so? We have tried to find out, but can only learn that no official instructions have been issued in a manner intended to reach those whom they concern—the tax-payers. These persons are left to believe, in fear and trembling, that their Property Tax returns must be sent to Wellington by the end of the month, under a penalty. They must be sent with full details, as required by the official papers originally issued. Not a single vexatious detail has oeen abated, so far as tax-payers arc informed. The angry outcry against those impertinent papers has elicited only the official promise made in Parliament, and the official promise has not been performed in the sligh test particular. P the papers were to be withdrawn, and other simpler ones substituted, why has this not been done ? Are the people to go through the farce of filling np the original papers, with all their vexations particulars, and then find after the papers are all in Wellington that the Government intended to make a concession, after all the mischief was done, hy asking the tax-payers to fill up simpler forms? What is the use. of having Ministers who cannot do the colony’s business in a business-like way ? Are we to pay these persons luxurious salaries for worrying our lives out with their bungling ? Here was a distinct promise, made in Parliament, that the “personal effects” should be exempted from the inquisition. Have they been exempted ? No; the persons who are to receive this promised relief are deliberately left to the terrorising penalty for not filling up their papers with all the original particulars. They are not even allowed to know whether an extension of time is to be given. The fellows who work the thumbscrews at Wellington will not relax the official grip. A free colony allows itself to be terrorised hy a few paid officials, who do not even understand that a promise is a thing to be performed. .