MEETING AT HALF-WAY BUSH.

Evening Star, Issue 3305, 23 September 1873, Page 2

MEETING AT HALF-WAY BUSH.

A public meeting of the ratepayers of the Half-way Bush District was held in the school-house, on the 19th inat., for the purpose of seeing if any amicable arrangement could be come to with the Hoad Board, the members of which had been respectfully invited to attend. Two of the Board were present, and an apology was received from the chairman who was unavoidably prevented attending. After a few appropriate remarks from Mr Hogg, the chairman of the meeting, a member of the Board explained how matters stood between the ratepayers and the Board, which amounted to this : that both parties were in a mess ; and he earnestly recommended ratepayers to show their confidence in the Board by paying all arrears of rates, and thus prevent them being compelled to put in force the compulsory provisions of the Highways Empowering Act (which was for the first time seen by the ratepayers) and which ho justly designated an iniquitous Act. The following motion was then proposed and adopted ; —‘-The ratepayers present at this raeetipg, though still adhering to their former position of being too highly rated for the actual requirements of the district, and protesting against the unprecedented wording expenditure and reckless letting of contracts pursued by the late Board, in opposition to the public protest of eighty ratepayers ; yet seeing that the Board is in a measure remodelled, and, wc believe, as a whole, anxious to work in harmony with the ratepayers, recommend the ratepayers to pay up arrears of rates, and so enable them to carry out the contracts entered into by the former Board, ” The mover in a few remarks alluded to the powers vested in the Board by the Road Board Ordinance, 1872, which only left the ratepayers the paltry privilege of objecting to the number of days allowed for making appeals and any glaring mal-appro-priation of funds, hut this new Act, which may properly bo styled the “Black Act,” deprived the ratepayers of even these meagre privileges, and legalised all transactions past and future. Such an Act is against all hnglish law, is oppressive and unjust, and would not be tolerated even under a despotic Government. The former Act of 1872 con aisted of ahoyc 20U"'o|ausfls, aikj. dost the Province 1,700, while the two put together might have been Hummed up in one sentence —viz., the ratepayers must elect a Board, and that Board could do what they liked. —The other member of the Board was even more emphatic in his denunciation of this compulsory Act, and was even doubtful if he could conscientiously act as a member of a Board which possessed the power of inflicting such injustice on his fellow-fnon. The clerk stated that instructions had been given to proceed against the ratepayers, and one case was to ho tried in a few days.

A vote of thanks was passed to the members of the Board, and the chairman of the meeting.