Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, AUGUST 15, 1893. Local Rating.

Manawatu Herald, 15 August 1893, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, AUGUST 15, 1893. Local Rating.

♦ We desire to direct attention to the possibility of the local Government machinery being put entirely out of gear if the two most prominent alterations proposed in the Bating Acts Amendment Bill are given effect to. The very fact that a number of local bodies desire power to charge slow ratepayers ten per cent interest upon their overdue rates, is an admission that experience has proved the difficulty that exists in getting rates punctually paid. Local bodies are at present empowered to sue at once rates are due, but they do not do so, and the Bill proposes to extend the term, practically, to three months, as it is not till that period has elapsed that interest can be charged. The power to sue at once still remains and therefore it is only from custom that it is not done, and we fail to see why the extended term of three months is introduced. If rate-' payers, with the knowledge that they are liable to be sued afte r

fourteen days from the date of receiving notice to pay, do not do so, the tact tUiit I hey are liable for interest on overdue amounts will not hurry them, but on the contrary cause them to imagine that this liability condones their want of punctuality. On the other hand excuses will be urged by members of lojal Indies to refrain from pushing for rates a? m >ney can be borrowed from the bank, the interest of which will be recoverable from the ratepayers. The power to charge interest will work out so that the larger amount of rates will be outstanding at the end of the year, more work will be placed on" the collector, and tho local body will be Piiying iniiwM. to the bank a long I way ovui- ih^ juiioiiufc recoverable i tVo-ii thr. itiLerc.-.:. on Ihe outstanding rates. The whole finaucial arrangements will be disorganised. It need not be so, but the cry for power to charge interest proves that what has been in the past will be even worse in the future. If we have not misrepresented the probable result of the collection of rates under this Bill, then we can confidently look forward to the total upset of the Burgess Eoll or the Ratepayers' list, as the case may be for a Borough or a County, as only a very small minority would have paid early enough to secure a vote. We notice that one Member of the House is about to move a new clause to circumvent this probable result, but the admission of such an occurrence being likely, is an admission that our representation as to the advantage which will be taken by ratepayers to postpone payment under the ten per cent clause, is correct. This pottering about of the rating of local bodies is extremely foolish, and the Premier, after the applications he has received for assistance from public bodies on account of the floods, should be the first to see it. Of course Part 111 means such a revolution in rating that until a fairly representative district has been worked out no one can say positively what the result would be. But, as we have previously mentioned, the reduction of all properties in this district to the position, for rating purposes, of " unimproved " values, means very much less than the half the present value of them. As the Bill only suggests giving local bodies power to tax to double the amount they can now do, it is as easy as anything can be to assert that those bodies who are now rating to their full power will not under this Bill have rates sufficient for their work. To new districts this will mean a very serious position of affairs, and it is not a question that should be left simply to the ratepayers, unless power is given to the local bo ly to strike any rate on the unimproved values, which will yield on equivalent sum to the full rate on improved values at present leviable. So many local bodies are now relying upon their powers of rating to pay interest on loans from the Government, and have to struggle so close to the limits of taxation to do so that any alteration, as would be bound to take place under these new proposals, would cause roadmaking entirely to cease. It is therefore imperative that a trial of rating on " unimproved " values should be accom panied by the power to raise any value of rate so that it shall not exceed the gross amount obtained by rating on the present valuations.

The Government are urged by the As sociation, and by Mr J. G. Wilson to assist the hemp industry and they stir not. The Department of Labour advises them however that flaxmilling is "much the same as last month; no improvement." I The elections will soon be on, then there will be a wonderful lot of talk about these unfortunate men needing work and getting none. What does this mean ? On page 11 of the Department of Labour handbook, under heading of tariff decisions appears the statement " Liniment (Gannon's) for sheep and cattle; as patent and pro. prietary machines." lias it become a judgment that physic, because it creates action, is therefore a machine, or is it a mis-print ? The •' sweeps " floated by single " promoter " on the Melbourne Cup of 1892 amounted to £186,000; while the cash which passed through the hands of the person running " Tattersall's" sweeps in the same year amounted to £430,000. The exports of N.Z. hemp for June was as follows : —Auckland 173 tpns, Welling, ton 1354 tons, Lyttleton 95 tons, Dunedin 19 tons, Napier 8 tons, New Plymouth 22 tons, Wairau 195 tons, Nelson 39 tons, and Invercargill 21 tons, making a total of 1900 tons valued at £33,578. The Journal of Commerce and Labour admits the following damaging fact against absurd protection "it is noticeable, however, that the importation of apparel is still maintained, and has even increased since the higher rate imposed in 1888." , " Train up a ferret in the way he should go or when turned out they will die of starvation," was practically what Mr Lawry told tho members of the Stock Conference. He insisted that ferrets must be taught in a small yard for four or five weeks how to kill rabbits. This is possibly so, but those whose eduoation has beon neglected do not appear to starve, as failing rabbits they kill something else. The Tasmanian representative at the Stock Conference asserted that " In Tas. mania they were in the unfortunate posi. tion that they could not feed themselves," we trust he meant in supplying sufficient ■took, otherwise the Tasmanians must be in a bad state. The three Slate Schools in Palmerston have been closed by the School Committee for a fortnight, says the Standard, on account of the prevailing epidemic of measles

In another column the Manawatu County Council publishes a nolica about stopping certain roach in this district. Contractors are reminded that tenders for the alterations to the vacs course close on Friday. Mr Greenwood noliHes that he will visit Foxton on Tuesday next, arriving on Monday night and leaving on Wednesday morningt Very slaw progress is being made with the sinking of the artesian well, hard gravel still being met with. We notice the Wanganui people are about to make another try in Wicksteed street. A tal» is told about a recent guest of Mr Edison's who was startled from sleep just at that witching hour " when churchyards yarn and graves give up their dead " by the following awful injunction, " Midnight has struck: Prepare to meet thy God." The tones were hollow and resonant, and filled the spacious room with weird echoes, but the source of this intimidating remark was nowhere to be seen. The visitor fled but fortunately met Edison himself, and was reassured in the following words: " Don't be scared old man, it's nothing but a clock." Writing of Prince George, the Duke of York, who hai so lately married the Priuces3 May, he is thus summed up: — He is simple in his personal tastes, shows no tendency to extravagance, while he is generous on occasion, he never forgets a friend, and has the royal memory for faces and names. There is being exhibited in Berlin (says the Illustrirte Zeitung) a dwarf elephant which recently arrived from Sumatra. This unhappy little phenomenon is three years old, and stands at the modest height of 36 inches from the ground. It is a trifle over one yard long, and weighs twelve stone. The normal weight of its kith and kin at the same age is from three to three and a half tons. In a few weeks Paris will have a restaurant where all the cooking will be done by electricity, and in the presence of the clients; no smoke, no dust, no heated atmosphere. Copper spirals, and raised to white heat in a cement, roasts, boils and grills. Inspector Hickson has reported to the Government, concerning alleged deaths through the Maori tohunga in the North, that the circumstances have been exaggerated. As certain deaths were alleged to have taken place through the treatment adopted, the tohunga has promised to abstain from any further treatment of patients, and the Natives have promised to report to the police any cases of malpractice which may come to their knowledge. The Archbishop of Aix has issued a manifesto renewing, in bitter terms, the attack on the Republic. He demands the recasting of the education and military laws, and asserts that the Pope does not ask the Roman Catholic clergy to accept the preseut Government. A Parliamentary correspondent of the Auckland Herald writes: —lt is probable after all that Mr Bruce will consent to stand for some district, possibly Wellington if the party is short of a candidate. But Sir John Hall's mind is made up to leave Parliament. The following appeared in the Southland News : —Was it instinct or reason ? During the storm that the other day visited the Bluff the spire of the (uncompleted) Presbyterian Church blew down, happily without inflicting any personal injury. Just before it fell, as we are informed, the infant child of Mr MacKenzie, the stationmaster, was playing beneath, his gambols being watched by Mr MacKenzie's Newfoundland dog. Suddenly the latter made a dart, seized the child by the clothes and drow it away just in time to prevent its being crushed by the falling timber. Now what premonition had the dog ? Did he see the structure giving way ? And why, at the risk of his life, did he put in practice an altruism or care for the safety of another that would have done honour to a human as distinguished from a canine subject ? Young men must be careful about courting in Feilding, if what the Star says i 3 accurate, as it says :—She was one of the I Feilding fair, and he, well he was one of those sweet-sc "nted, well dressed, elegant young gents, who are noted for a meaningless smile and lamentable absence of brain power. He had arranged to meet the beautiful Pauline at tlio back-yard gate, and sweet visions of the oft experienced romantic ramble to the Makino vi idly floated before his soft brown eyes. The window above was raised, •' Oh joy " he muttered and throwing several hall-marked kisses to the feminine figure who bobbed out her head, he fervently exclaimed, "Pauline, Pauline, thou art mine, and mine alone." The reply came swift and sure in the unwelcome form of a bucket of stale soap-suds that spoilt for ever his thirty bob light check suit. The old woman had often vowed to knook all the stuffing out of that kind of " yellow back romance," and that she had fully succeeded was demonstrated by the badly drenched, and fearfully crest-fallen wreck that poor unfortunate Augustus presented when he arrived home. A German named Mossner was taken to Wellington on Saturday from Levin by a constable on the charge of stabbing an ■ Italian named Gaetano Mori. The men were mates and slept at the Temperance Hotel on Friday night, two others beiog in the room. Mori was stabbed with a pocket knife while in bed, but none of the wounds are supposed to be serious. Mossner has been declared a dangerous lunatic, and remanded to the asylum. A very curious phenomenon is to be seen at Levin, and is exercising the minds of the residents of that town. About a week ago a couple of springs suddenly made their appearance about half a mile from the township, and within forty eight hours the place was flooded to a depth of eight inches by the flow from these springs. Past the Levin hotel there is a regular torrent of water, which empties itself into the Horowhenua lake, about two miles away. Should this exceedingly strange outburst of water from the bowels of the earth, as it were, not cease very soon, the residents will have to go in for a wholesale importation of gondolas, and carry on their business in Venetian 9tyle. —Standard. Our members get a little perplexed as to what they wish to illustrate. The member for Manakau declared that the Prohibitionists desired to make every action of man to be ordered by them. "They want men to chastise their flesh and part their hair in the middle, and ait all day in church—Well, that's not my idea of life " —and he shook his head defiantly. " Next thing they will want to stop us smoking, and then we mustn't have football, and finally we'll be brought down to living like the animals of the field —on bread and water!" To country residents the idea of animals of the field living on bread and water is fresh and quaint even if not correct.