The Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 1891. POLITICAL NOTES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2218, 23 June 1891, Page 2

The Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 1891. POLITICAL NOTES.

“ Let nothing bat what is goed be said of the dead” was the thought which rose uppermost in our mind when we found Hr Thompson, M.Q.E., hammering away at the late Mr Sperrey the other evening in his place in Parliament. Mr Thompson brought under the notice of Sir Harry Atkinson certain grave accusations made against the late Mr Sperrey, Property Tax Commissioner, but nothing was done in it. He next made the charges publicly in addressing his constituents, and Mr Mitchelson wrote to him asking whether be was correctly reported, and he replied that he was, but nothing ever came of it, and when he cajne to attend Parliament last year he gave Mr Mitchelson, who was then acting aa Premier, the full details. He again reiterated the charges oh the door of the House, one of which was that “ a certain property in Auckland, valued at £2BOO, and which had been assessed at that amount by the Board of Reviewers, had afterwards been reduced by the Property Tax Commissioner, on his own responsibility, to £750,” This is a terribly serious accusation. The property was worth £2BOO, and it was reduced to £750, thus defrauding the revenue of about £8 10s a year, yet the House and the Government took no action. Mr Thompson next showed that in the same way a piece of railway owned by a company—and known as the Kaihu Valley Railway—was valued at £BO,OOO, waa reduced to £IOSO, thus defrauding the revenue again of nearly £B3O a year. He pointed out these and several other instances of apparently fraudulent reductions in value, but the Government took no notice of it until after Mr Sperrey’s death, when Sir Harry Atkinson wrote a letter of condolence to his relatives, in the course of which he condemned Mr Thompson’s actions in unmeasured terms. It was this attack which forced Mr Thompson to bring the matter before the House last Wednesday, and if anyone could be excused at all for such references to the dead, certainly Mr Thompson had a good excuse. A more extraordinary revelation we have not come across, but it is quite plain that Mr Sperrey was net to blame, and that be was ordered to make these reductions so that the friends of bir Harry Atkinson might escape taxation. In oar own neighborhood a similar thing occurred. The Levels Laud Company got their valuation reduced by the same man by £12,000, and though the County Council protested against it, and passed resolutions condemnatory of it, the reduced value was maintained. This is the way in which the ratepayers were swindled under the Property Tax, The thing is disgraceful to the late Government and the late Parliament for having allowed such things to pass unnoticed,