"RANK AND FILE'S" LETTER.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 2805, 5 July 1890, Page 6 (Supplement)

"RANK AND FILE'S" LETTER.

TO THK KDITOIt. Sin, —I have been away from home, and did not learn of " Rank and File's" letter till this morning. The mail leaves here in about an hour, so I cannot just say all I would like. I will only take what appears and would be the heaviest indictment, and very heavy and telling it would be, if at all applicable to me. Mr " Rank and File" says it is well for me to uphold tho proncrty tax, who pays nothing to it, and that I can look with complacency upon the collector, armed with the powers of the law, upon the aged and infirm who havo to pay it.

"Rank and File" hugs to himself thiit he ! has put me up a troe. Poor " Rank and File," you will need to rise early to catch me to be inconsistent in any one single thing that I have written for years in Thk Waik.VTO Timkh. When the late Major Jackson last addressed his constituents, either in To Awamutn or Kihikihi, I fortret which, he was asked by ono of his hearers if it would bo a good thing to do away with the t.'iOO exemption. Ho (the Major) replied that it would be a strain upon the smaller pooplo but that some favoured the oxemption notably " Harapipi." Now how was it the Major brought me into it. It was thus : Two days before his address you had published a letter of mine in, which I did my very best and racked my brains to prove that the exemption should be done away with. Now I pay as " Rank and File" says no property tax, and here was I doing my very best to tax myself. I was told by ono who knew mo and my circumstances that not another man in New Zealand but myself would have done so. Ho said may men like yourself might in their inward heart think that in principle the exemption should be done away with, but not another one would take steps to do away with it and so tax himself. The rest of " Rank and File's" letter is all about mo being a drone. I could if I felt inclined utterly confound him about my being :i drone, only it would bo silly for me to do so. What does it matter whethor I am or am not a drone V—ln haste,—l am, etc., HAlt.U'U'I.