The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, JANUARY 18.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 468, 18 January 1881, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, JANUARY 18.

A Tijiauu paper has the following pertinent remarks on the new Dog Registration Act which came into force on January 1. They are so pertinent to the question that we make no apology for re-producing them. We have no reason to think that the writer had this district in his mind's eyes when he writes of lo< a] hodies failing , to " discharge an unpleasant duty inflexibly," but it is certainly appropriate. While on this subject we may be permitted to remind the County Council that it will be necessary for them to appoint registrars and registration offices. The Borough Council has done this, but, so far as we are aware, the County Council has not done so. In other counties we observe public notice has been given of the names of the registrars and tlie situations of the offices. Before proceeding to enforce payment of the tax it would be as wel] for our lucal authorities to render their position unimpeachable. The following is the article wo refer to : —

The loc.il bodies are now taking , stops to compel the registration of dogs, ;md we hope that they will take effectual ones. Hitherto the uncertain wording of the law prevented the dog tux being strictly enforced in Canterbury, because it was believed that the careless word ing of the old Provincial Ordinance left a loophole of escape in case anyone chose to defend an action for not regis-

tering a dog. For our own part we never thought there was anything in that supposed flaw, under any reasonable construction of plain English; but as one Resident Magistrate bad dismissed a case on the ground of that flaw, there was certainly no knowing , whether others might not take the same view. The consequence was that the tax was only very partially collected.

The Registration of Dogs Act of last session, however, removes all doubt, and makes it compulsory on everyone who keeps a dog to register it and pay a fee often shillings, under a penalty of five pounds. But the administration of the Act is left to the local bodies, and it depends entirely upon the manner in which those bodies perform their duty, whether the tax will bo impartially levied or not. One would suppose that for the sake of the revenue, if from no other motive, they would take care not to leave a single dog unregistered ; but experience shows that not even the inducement of swelling their funds is always strong enough to make local authorities discharge an unpleasant task inflexibly. What is to be feared, then, is that they will collect as many dogs fees as they can without much trouble, compel registration in a few cases of conspicuous neglect, and lot the rest, that is to say the majority, take their chance.

Now that course, we maintain, is very unjust. If a dog tax is to be levied at all, it ought to be levied on all alike. It is too bad that owners of good dogs who honestly comply with the law,or who if they do not comply with it, can readily be got at, should be made to pay, whilst others who keep a lot of curs and never think of paying a farthing for them, should be allowed to go scot free. One only has to walk down the main street of this town any day, to see numbers of dogs running about without badges or collars. In the country districts it is the exception to find a dog registered, except valuable dogs whose owners do not care to run any risk about them. The people who do not register are naturally the very people who keep most dogs, and thus farmers arc annoyed by these pests without the local revenue gaining anything. We hope this state of tilings will now be put a stop to, and that the local bodies will administer ihe Act with equal vigilance and impartiality.