Page 5 Advertisements Column 1

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 7, Issue 66, 21 April 1944, Page 5

AN OPEN LETTER TO COUNTY COUNCILLORS: GUARDIANS OF RATEPAYERS OR MINIONS OF THE GOVERNMENT T T hat t T ? e L ? CaI E,ections and Polls Amendment Act is part of the Labour Party s plan to reduce the farmer to economic vassalage was made plam by Government Members of Parliament, during the debate upon the Bill when they boasted that it was nothing to what was in store for the farmers. The Act will enable non-ratepayers to vote and elect non-rate-payers to County Councils, overwhelming the ratepayers in many of the Counties in the Auckland Province. Non-ratepayers will be able, to fix the rates which ratepayers must, pay and spend the money ratepayers must find. Counties are to become the happy hunting ground of the political carpet bagger and the last restraint upon soaring rates will go since the non-ratepayers will call the tune. No justification existed for rating landholders for the upkeep of a National Health service any more than it would for. the upkeep of the National Postal Service. This Act destroys the last vestige of justification for rating land for roading upkeep when it destroys the right of the. ratepayer to control the expenditure of the money he pays., TOTAL DERATUNG of land for hospital and roading upkeep is not now merely a matter of justice, 'it becomes the farmer's vital safeguard ; without it he will be defenceless. We call upon all councillors to take action to bring about this reform. Are they prepared to act as our COUNTY EXECUTIVES i<n this fight for justice, or do they intend to supinely act as EXECUTORS FOR THE GOVERNMENT in the LIQUIDATION of their fellow farmers ? J. H. FURNISS, Campaign Director, N.Z. Farmers' Union, 162 (Auckland Province). Advt.