THE EDUCATION-RATE.

Marlborough Express, Volume III, Issue 143, 7 November 1868, Page 4

THE EDUCATION-RATE.

To the Editor of the Marlborough Express. Sir, —Would you kindly give publicity, through the medium of your valuable columns, to the following statementßeing a settler in the • Peloros Sound, I, with a number of others, re*' ceived a summons for the Education Rate, amounting with expenses to over-double the amount of rate. Now, owing to the geographical situation of the Sound, and living as most settlers are from 2 to 26 miles apart, the only communication between them being by waterj it is, and always will be, utterly impossible ever to form a School in the vicinity, from which more than one family could derive any benefit. Knowing this, it comes very hard on all the settlers, but much more so on those with .families of from 3 to 10 children, who derive not the slightest advantage, but are expected to go 20 to 35 miles to pay the rate. -1 mush do Mr. Adams justice as Collector for the district, for asking tho_e whom he happened to meet in Havelock for-the rate, but simply, as he himself states, through courtesy. Now by far the greatest half of settlers were never asked for the rate, but received a summons for over double the amount. In the Wairau a Collector is appointed who travels some thirty miles up country on purpose to demand the rate ; then why summons us without demanding the money, who have greater difficulties to contend against, but are expected to travel an average of 25 miles by water to pay it. Such injustice speaks well for our Provincial Acts, Yours, &c., A Pelorus Pilgrim. Pelorus Sound, October 31st, 1868.