COUNTIES CONFERENCE

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2130, 12 July 1907, Page 3

COUNTIES CONFERENCE

Press Association. WELLINGTON, yesterday. At the Counties Conference to-day it was resolved that tlie incomplete manner in which the native lands art entered in the valuation rolls renders tlie collection of a rate by the locai body on such lands an impossibility, and" nullifies the object of the. Native Lands Ra ting Act; that provision _be made in the Government \ ablation of Land Act, compelling the \\aluer--General to insert in the valuation roll of the local authority the name of the occupier and owner of all native land rateable within the meaning of the Native Lands Act. The (■ inference rejected a. motion' that the Government be asked to take over all responsibility with regard to the upkeep and administration of old people’s homes in the colony. Among -the resolutions passed at the Counties’ Conference are the following:—That the Government be requested to- individualise the ownership of all native lands, and to make them rateable to the same extent as other lands within counties;' that Crown and native lands he subject to the same regulation under the Noxious Weed Act as private lands and lands belonging to local bodies; that the Government will enact provisions general to the colony for the regulation and control of motor cars; that tlie Government he urged to have waste Crown lands in tlio north thrown;..Ope i 1 for settlement as soon as possible; that an amendment lie effected in tlie Local Bodies Loans Act, 1901, so as to enable local bodies to borrow from the Government on the security of a special rate levied whollv upon native lands when, say, half of such lands are occupied by Europeans under registered lease.