The Shannon Appointment

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 234, 13 December 1888, Page 3

The Shannon Appointment

■ Tnn fueling against Mr Shannon’s appointment appears to be general throughout the ■ colony. A late Christchurch telegram states that the fueling against him there is verv 1 stormy. In an interview with a Wellington Press reporter, Mr Shannon made the following statement: —A considerable time ago S : r Harry Afkin«rn and Mr McKellar asked him whether he w uLI assist them with advice as tn soft goods invoices, and as he had retired from business and was living in the country, h- 3 agreed to do this for them merely as an amuseme't end without pay. Invoices and Customs qii'oies were accordingly forwarded to him up th° country and he gave his decition and advice by post. The Government always accepted hi* decision, though in one nstance ir. was ir. favor of the drapery trade to such an extent as to cause a loss of £BOOO avearto the revenue. H’s se'vices became s;» imporant that the Pr-mier and Mr McKellar pressed him to accept a regular appointment, but he declined and continued to act as before. At length th*y urged him so strongly that he consented to accept the post of Inspector at £lOOO a year. The Government were afraid to give such a large salary, les’, it should raise a howl: a d ultimately Mr Shannon consented to take £BOO a year to oblige Sir Harry Atkinson and Mr McKellar, but he stipulated that he wa* not to be an ordinary civil servant to be ticked off by anybody, though he would be prepared to go off at any time if not wanted. The appointment was made a month before it was announced, and during that month Mr Shannon has been g< ing all about the colony, unknown to the soft goods men. finding out all the secrets of the trade, and has found syst- matic smuggling even among firms of the highest standing. He took a fraudulent invoice to Sir H. A. Atkinson and showed him how the thing was worked. Sir H. Atkinson could not believe it, out on opening the goods, it was found to be

true The culprit was not prosecu'ed, bul a- let off on passing a post en’ry for the additional duty. Sir H. Atkinson was ut’erlj astonished at Mr Shannon’s disclosures ol fiaudsin the revenue committed by leading peop'e whom he had supposed incapable ol such doing*. As soon a* Mr Shannon had got thoroughly behind the scenes in these matters he recommended that the appointment should be made known so as to make soft goods men afraid to smuggle any more. He has already saved more than his whole year’s salary. His duties in future are to consist of going suddenly from port to port wherever large clearances of draperies are to be mode, to examine invoice and open the gnodß so as to detect fraud if attempted. Nobody will know when or where he may drop on them, and ao nobody will dare to employ fraudulent invoices. From his experience in tho business, he knows all the firms sending goods to New Zealand, handwritings and all, and. from the secret knowledge gained while behind the scenes, before his appointment was published, ha knows exsctly how the oracle is worked. He was quite prepared to be attacked* by the newspapers, but he is pretty thick-skinned, and does not care at all how much they attack him, because he feels that he earns his salary instead of sitting on his posterior and merely drawing his screw like a Civil Servant, but he wishes these facts to be made known in order to remove false impressions about his appointment,