Cr. MAYN’S STATEMENTS

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4884, 30 September 1925, Page 2

Cr. MAYN’S STATEMENTS

PATETONGA ROADING QUESTION. “DISTORTION BY MINISTER. Commenting on the recent statements of the Hon. A- D> McLeod, Minister for Lands, anent the Patetonga troubles, Cr. J. F. Mayn, the riding representative on .the Hauraki Plains County Council, says that as featured by the Minister the position appeared to have suffered distortion. “According to the Press, the Minister states : ‘I asked whether, in the event of the Lands Department taking control of the Patetonga riding from the County Council, the settlers would pay the same rates to. the Crown as they were paying to the council. The reply I received from the council member for the district w,as that the council was spending within the riding practically nothing of the £BOO collected. These are his own words. The County Council is controlling roads on-which it does nothing. If we reverted ,to the Lands Department we would get a ‘fair spin.’ ” Cr. Mayn explains that in support-, ing a proposal for the return of that area in the Patetonga riding which the Lands Department by Act of Parliament had forced upon the County Council he, at different points in his address-, expressed* himself as stated by the Minister. But the Minister had, he said, by grouping certain of the remarks and neglecting continuity, quite altered the complexion of the case as presented at the time. "The Minister appears, to be under a misapprehension regarding the nature of the area comprising the Patetonga riidng, which'’ is part freehold and Part Hauraki Plains O.R.P. land,”, he continued. “It was this latter area alone which concerned his department at the time of his visit to Patetonga, yet he makes frequent refer,ence to the Patetonga riding as a whole, and this could not have been taken over en bloc by the Lands Department. The. Minister has evidently got his reports mixed, for my reply to his question regarding.the payment of rates to : the Cr/own was.: ‘Personally, I would not favour it, as I am of opinion the departmnet has obligations to fulfil here without payment by the settlers.’ “Truly, I stated,” said Cr. .Mayn, “that the County Council is controlling roads upon which it does nothing, but I continued by explaining that the Lands Department had not completed the clay formation of any single road in the area handed over, and there was nothing that the Cbttntny could do.” Continuing, Cr. Mayn said that he was certainly of opinion that the settlers would get a “fair spin” if the area reverted to the Lands Department, else Ije would not have advocated the transfer. The position to,-day was that the council was compelled by law to collect rates from the settlers; in the O.R.P. area of the Patetonga riding but on account of the backward state of the Government reading scheme the council was unable to spend' any portion of the rates upon the roads in question. Need one wonder at the dissatisfaction existing in the locality.