Evening Post MONDAY, JULY 18, 1910. THE ONLY PROPER COURSE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 15, 18 July 1910, Page 6

Evening Post MONDAY, JULY 18, 1910. THE ONLY PROPER COURSE.

The Government appears to us to have taken the only proper course in regard to the deplorable irregularities in the Land and Income Tax Department and the Valuation Department, which, after exciting much public curiosity, have been the subject of two judicial investigations, and have resulted in the resignations of the chief officer of these departments and of one of his principal subordinates. Both in what it has laid before the House and in what it has kept to itself the Government has been well advised. Publicity is, as a rule, the best way of disposing of a scandal and of preventing its recurrence, but the case of a taxing department is a very exceptional one. The general right of the public to know how its business is managed is mot by the right of private persons to havo the secrets of their business! iespected< The information which th« taxpayer Bu.pp.Us6 to sJut-ds-

partmenfc regarding his income is given under the seal of the strictest confiifence, which nothing but the paramount necessities of tho criminal law would justify the Government in breaking. Here there is, fortunately, no question of a criminal prosecution. The commissioners, whose outspokenness regarding the other branch of their enquiry inspires one wain full confidence in their thoroughness and their courage, have, says Sir Joseph Ward, acquitted tho lat« Commissioner of Taxes of either corruption or dishonesty or impropriety in regard to any of the taxing cases. There was, therefore, no ground for laying the papers relating to these cases on the table, and so divulging the private affairs of taxpayers. The letter in which Mr. Waldegrave, a Civil Servant of long experience and hirjh standing, who had acted on the commission, set out this view, should command a practically universal assent. The valuation cases were in an i entirely different position. There is nothing like the same degree of secrecy attaching to the operations of a lending department as to those of a taxing department, and in this case the borrower whose private affairs were in question was identical with the principal officer \ whose public acts had to be investigated. There was no obligation to secrecy here, j and tho public has accordingly been pro- j ,perly put in full possession of the I facts. The verdict of the commission with j regard to these cases is that Mr. Heyes, who was at the time Commissioner of Taxes and Valuer-General, was "guilty of gross impropriety ; and that his conduel, in the matter was wholly without justification or excuse." We cannot see j that any reasonable man could have ! arrived afc a different conclusion. Tho action of Mr. Heyes in applying for a loan from a department of which he was the head was in itself improper j but when he went out of his way to obtain a special valuation of his property because he knew that the ordinary officer would not value it high enough to allow the board to lend the desired amount, his action justified the strong language of the commissioners. The matter is aggravated by the fact that a similar procedure was employed in two different cases, as to each of which the finding of the commissioners is the same. The facts disclosed by Sir Joseph Ward in his statement to the House of Representatives on Friday make it perfectly plain both that the commissioners could have arrived at no other conclusion, and that the Government could have taken no other course than that of insisting upon the resignation both of Mr. Heyes and of the officer whom ho induced to act as his accomplice. We should have hardly thought it necessary to make this remark if it had not been for the ill-advised attempt made by several members of the House to defend or palliate the action of the principal culprit. There is surely nobody who desires to add to the humiliation and the pain which have brought to a close the long term of the late Valuer-Gen eral's faithful and efficient service. But to talk about his offence as "paltry," and to suggest that it merely consisted in getting an advance of £200 more than the facts Avarrantetl on each of two properties, as Mr. Laurenson did, is to be guilty of a maudlin sentimentality which "endeavours to obliterate the distinction between black and white. Mr. T. E. Taylor's retort was excellent. "There is no systematic corruption in any branch of the' Public Service," he said. "But this will not be able to be said in future if Mr. Laurenson's ideas on the matter become general."' The Government has done the right thing, and sympathy with the fallen does not prevent the public conscience from recognising the fact.