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Grey River Argus, Volume XVI, Issue 2183, 7 August 1875, Page 2

Quk local lawyers and Provincial politicians have apparently had some work prepared for them by the proceedings of the West/and Council -during its last session. Litigation is likely to follow their legislation, and, as one good turn deserves another, the litigation will probably involve fresh legislation on their part at a period eapliep tflan they contemplated*. Their solemn conclusions on the

toll question present a sorry spectacle by their crudeness and confusion,! and have placed the Executive in a predicament in which they would deserve picy if they did not occupy the position of .a particpes criminis. The Toll-gate Ordinance is evidently a bungle from beginning to end. and is a marked evidence of the effects of injudicious haste on the part of members who, in the Council, and without a moment's consideration, sketch out amendments, or attach schedules of tolls to be collected, with all the ease characteristic of the composition of a lawyer's bill. Two clever by half, they are not half so clever as they assume to be, and a worried Executive aie equally innocent of the errors made until they come to put the law into practice. First they found, as soon as the session had closed, and they were called upon to sell the tolls, that through some clerical error or otherwise, the rate of tolls under the Ordinance had been so increased as to greatly augment the income of the lessees, and to impose a proportionately heavy burden on the public. Next was discovered the astounding fact that the toll-keepers, in the absence of any provision to the contrary, had power to charge tolls on vehicles, horses, herds, and flocks, every time they passed through a toll-gate in a single day— a discovery which led to a deputation waiting upon the Government, though with what result we have not heard, and to a cessation of work at the saw-mills of Messrs Malfroy, Harker, and Co., on the Arahura road. To the excessive rates of tolls, at least, is attributed the determination of that firm to stop work for the present. Simultaneously a difficulty has arisen with the lessee of the Omotumotu toll-gate, on whose declension to sign the lease the Provincial Government have placed a person in charge until the purchaser is brought to reason, or asserts his supposed rights by litigation. And now we are informed the Kawhaka Toll-gate comes within the same category. According to a statement in our Hokitika contemporary, it appears that the Treasurer received on the 25th July, a depositlrom a gentleman who engaged to purchase the right to collect tolls at the Kawhaka tollgate for LISOL The Government agreed to aubmit the gate to auction, and if there was no higher offer, the gentleman referred to was to become the purchaser. Now, however, the Government, after advertising the sale for a week, have suddenly resolved to withdraw it from sale. Truly tramways and toll-gates are a source of sore trouble to those who have to ad- . minister under the Acts of Westland's Councils.