THE LATE MR J. W. SUMNER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 181, 17 November 1941, Page 4

THE LATE MR J. W. SUMNER

tiers to form the Rangitaiki Ratepayers' Association, of which Mr Sumner, as vice-president, was a leading personality. Eventually the Association forced the Government, to write off £300,000 of the drainage debt on the Plains (equal to £3 an acre); also to adopt the Association's plan of graduated rates, rising as the land became more in-come-producing .

Mr Sumner served the Plains people well in helping to wring these concessions from officialdom in Wellington. Perhaps his work over many difficult years as a leading personality oif the Ratepayers* Association really overshadows his public service on local bOidies, so well listed in the Beacon.

Be that as it niay, it is to be hoped that the interests of payers of land drainage rates will in the future be as well looked after as they were by the late Mr Sumner and his colleagues.

Yours etc., ONE WHO REMEMBERS

Sir,—ln Wednesday's Beacon mention was made of the death of Mr J. W. Sumner and of the many public positions which he had held during more than a quarter of a century as a Rangitaiki..PlaLn|®ta® tier. It was not surprising mention was made of the Mr Sumner was a vice-president the Rangitaiki Ratepayers' tion when, it was formed 20 ago, and later became 1 president,, holding that office at the time of his death. To the present generation this means nothing. How many readers of the Beacon can remember the time when the Plains were in name ami in fact just a swamp ? • How many also can recall the slump ' years of 1921-.22 when an unsympathetic Government of the day decided in its lack of wisdom to start levying drainage rates to pay for the cost of drainage and roading the Rangitaiki Swamp (much of it being, then still undrained)? were thet circumstances which forced the set-