A THORNY QUESTION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 135, 4 December 1909, Page 4

A THORNY QUESTION.

The land question, and the trouble in the Land and Income Tax Department which has recently formed the subject of a secret enquiry by two Judges of the Supreme Court, usurped the lion's share of the attention of the House of Representatives yesterday. Both subjects had been up before, and both are bound to recur. The debate on the land question was not nearly so interesting as that of the previous day, and we have nothing to add to the remarks which we made on the subject yesterday. For the Government the other matter, though of much smaller importance, is almost equally unpleasant, and it is still more embarrassing for the candid and independent critic. What are the rights and the wrongs of the demand of the Opposition for the letting of more daylight into the nature and effect of the enquiry into the allegations against a high official of the Land and Income Tax Department? A more unfortunate subject for the breath of scandal to busy itself upon could not have been selected. There is no department whose whole operations are of a more essentially confidential character. Even the details of diplomacy do not require to be so constantly Ecreened from the public gaze as the work of a taxing department. In the case of diplomacy the time for publications comes sooner or later, and sometimes very soon ; but the silence of a Commissioner of Taxes as to the information he receives from his victims under the seal of the strictest confidence has to be eternal. It would, therefore, have been well if the allegations into which the judges have been enquiring could^have been kept entirely secret, but the question is whether in the present case the public knowledge has not gone so far that it ought to be carried a step further. The very worst point of view from which the question should be approached is that adopted by Mr. Laurenson, whose transformation into a Government Whip has converted him from an independent and candid critic into the most consistent of Ministerial claqueurs. The Opposition, he asks us to believe, are attacking the Land and Income Tax Department because wealthy people suffer most from its attentions, and are therefore most anxious to see it discredited. That a wealthy man is necessarily a wicked man is a proposition which appeals with all the force of an axiom to a certain class of politicians, but that a wealthy man. should be such a fool as to desire to have the details of his private business published to the world is an absurdity at which even they might be expected to stop short. It is, indeed, absolutely imperative that the secrecy of the information confidentially supplied, whether by the rich or by the poor, to the department must be scrupulously respected, and if the publication of the Judges' report would violate that confidence, as the Premier assure* ub that it would, then the with-

holding of the report is justified. The further propositipn was advanced by the Premier that even with the names and figures suppressed, the report would reveal the identity of the taxpayers whose business was concerned. This is, of course, a matter on which we can express no opinion, but we are certainly not disposed to question the accuracy of the statement made by Sir Joseph Ward with a full knowledge of the facts. Like a libel which deals with innuendo instead of straightforward assertion, a publication which would indirectly reveal confidential information would be just as bad as one which printed it all without disguise. When we referred to this case a week ago, we submitted that it was sub judice, and that Sir Joseph Ward "was quite justified in declining to table the report of the Judges' preliminary investigation, as he had more than hinted that a test case would probably be taken ; but last night he was disappointingly vague in this matter. The undignified repetition of rumours promoted by "the man in the street" was a regrettable feature of last night's debate, but for this undue honouring of gossip the Premier is, in some degree, blameable. If the decencies, in his view of them, do not allow him to defer to the wishes of Mr. Massey and other Oppositionists, surely the importance of the issue puts him under an obligation to definitely and firmly set out the Government's intentions. It is, perhaps, the mystery of the Government's mind, more than the mystery of the case in question, that is giving some concern to the public.