Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, JULY 28, 1891. The Counties Bill.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 28 July 1891, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, JULY 28, 1891. The Counties Bill.

» The Government fearing that the land-owner will still grow rich and fat even if they succeed in carrying their progressive land tax, has made another shot at him under cover of the Counties Act Amendment Bill. By the substitution of a new clause, it enacts that every County elector is to have one vote only. To those who understand local rating and voting, the unfairness of the proposal is most glaring. Our readers being acquainted with such proceedure it makes it unnecessary for us to go fully into the question. We hardly understand what position the Government can take up to justify such a proposal in any . form but for them to endeavour to amend the Counties Act in this direction and to leave the Road Boards and Municipalities Acts untouched is a gross piece of absurdity as well as of injustice. The Amendment Bill makes some reference to Boad Boards thus showing that the Government are aware that frequently the two bodies are at work over the same area, otherwise it might have been thought that such institutions as Boad Boards , had been forgotten. At present the number of votes given to property are on much a similar value for both County and Roads Boards, and the checks formed to prevent loans being raised without a very strong majority approving, are identical in the two bodiesThe Government now desire to say that men who, are under both County and Boad Boards, shall in County matters, and for County loans have only one vote, whereas under Boad Board proposals they would have many votes. Counties generally cover a larger area than Boad Boards so that stronger securities should have been given, rather than taken from, the County elector. The Government go further, as after reducing the County elector's votes, they [reduce the majority, until now necessary to carry a vote of the ratepayers. The Government have sounded the death knell of the Counties, and if their proposals are carried they will have " done them to death," as no sane body of men will agree to carry out a form of socalled self-government which will, permit the holders of minute allotments to have the same power: to levy taxation, .as the bolder of many

thousand pounds worth of land. The farce wonld be too much like asking a hungry man to pick your pocket. As yet the bounties can go under and "bob up serenely" «as "Road Boards, but we hardly expect thi3 will be permitted, and it therefore behoves every ratepayer to object to the government proposals. The Counties to-day, the Road Boards to-morrow, and the Municipalities the day following, seems to be the method the Government will work Tipon. In ancient Kome, Christians were slaughtered for the amusement of the public ; With a free-thinker Premier and a " Liberal" Ministry, the ratepayers of ihe Colony pre to be disarmed so that the " masses" may be able to rend them in any way they please. Jew baiting was a joke to what these proposals might lead to.