NON-CONSUMERS' RATE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4672, 10 March 1924, Page 2

NON-CONSUMERS' RATE.

TO BE LEVIED BY POWER BOARD. '

AN UNFAIR PROCEDURE.

Few people appreciate tiie full meaning of the non-consumeis late which the Power Board intends striking in the immediate future. On Wednesday evening last, when the Thames Valley Electric Power Board officials addressed a, meeting of ratepayers in Paeroa, some rather startling information was adduced regarding the levying of the rate. In reply to His Worship the Mayor Mr F. 11. Claxton, chairman of-the board, statcil that the maximum rate K was £3O per ratepayer, with a minimum of £l. In the town the late would be collected at £1 per section.

The Mayor took exception to a rate, and stated that it would a charge of probably £3OO to £4OO per annum to the ratepayers of Paeroa. He contended that it would be a decidedly unfair way of making up the shortage, and thought that the ratepayers, in P-ieroa at any rate, should not tiderate such an imposition. On the face of it the position appears to be a grossly unfair one, aS many residents would ’prefer to instil electricity in their homes but cannot afford to do so. and now they arc to be compelled to pay for something they have not got. That the striking of the non-con-

sumer.r rate is going to have a farreaching effect is evidenced by the renly given by the chairman of the Board to a questioner at the Morrinsville meeting. Mr Claxton stated that the owners of grazing lands, wlm had no use for power, would have to pay the non-consumers’ rate, because it was impossible to strikte a rate that would operate with the same degree of fairness to everybody.