Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1883.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume X, Issue 2034, 14 November 1883, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE : WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1883.

The Auckland Herald, approving of the appointment of Mr. Mitchelson as Minister of Public Works, does so upon the extraordinary ground that the gentleman " served his apprenticeship as a carpenter, and thus has the advantage of a mechanical training." Upon this train of reasoning we should look for a post-office messenger as the best man to take a portfolio for PostmasterGeneral, or a lineman for the management of telegraphs, and the cashier of a bank or merchant's office for Colonial Treasurer.

People with over £500 of property, clear of their debts, have been called upon to pay their tax by the Ist December, now next ensuing. But the Commissioners, or those to whom has been entrusted the revising of the assessments, have in a number of instances, with almost unparalleled mendacity, added to the value of the " personalities " in amounts ranging from ten to twenty per cent. Of course persons so unfairly assessed have the power of appeal ; but who will waste the beßt part of a day to save some five or ten shillings, with the chance of the claim for reduction being refused ?

The Commissioner appears actuated by a feeling that " many littles make a muckle." That in making people pay more than they have any right to pay the State would bo enriched. One hundred and fifty thousand people having to pay in the aggregate each ten shillings more than should be demanded of them makes up a goodly sum. This gross imposition will have to be enquired into at the next sitting of Parliament.

Sir Julius Yogel, when he nearly doubled his own and Ministers' salaries, and at the same time placing to his credit sonio three thousand pounds over and above his regular allowanco for travelling expenses, excused himself upon the ground that the increase was no more than three-eighths of a penny upon the population of the country. Our Property Tax Commissioners appear to act upon the same principle.

Mr. Bryce, it is stited, now that Parliament has closed, is quietly working out the problem which is to solve the Native difficulty. He has told King T.VWHIAO, in diplomatic language, that if his policy at any time is in the direction of stopping or retarding the progress of the Colony, his Kingship will at once ease upon the powers possessed by " European authority." Tawhiao has accepted the hint.