The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, March 14, 1912. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1018, 14 March 1912, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. Thursday, March 14, 1912. NOTES AND COMMENTS.

The local school committee will learn with pleasure that the Education Board has decided to pay halt the sanitation charge in connection with the local school. This charge, £8 xos, would make it impossible for the committee to meet their ordinary obligations out of the Board’s capitation grant. It is true that special efforts have been made by the committee to raise the wind, but money so obtained has been ear-marked for specific purposes, such as ground improvements, prizes, etc. We maintain that the Council’s charge to the school is excessive, and, it put on a rateable basis, would be illegal. The annual charge for the present obsolete, disgusting and unhealthy pan service is 17s 6d per pan per annum. The school is provided with ten pans, and while these are in excess of what is required, the Council charge the full rate per pan, as if the sanitary employee had to call at ten residences. No resident complains at the xys 6d charge to get the nuisance removed from his back door once a week, but we fail to see why the mil rate should be charged for leu pans and these only partially utilised, at the one locality ! We again urge upon the ratepayers’ representatives the fairness ol the committee’s request for a reduction, and at the same time apologise to our readers for having to refer to such an unsavoury subject.

That an amendment is necessary in our electoral law governing Licensing Committee elections is evidenced by the lack of interest displayed and the paucity of votes recorded at the recent polls. Kven those electorates where anything like au exciting contest between the Trade and Temperance parties was held not half the electors took the trouble to record their votes, and local govermugbodies are saddled with the expense. It would be better that the local bodies should select suitable representatives from among themselves to constitute the Bench, than the present farcical elections should be continued. Failing that we can’t see any valid reason, now that that the Licensing Act has been amended respecting 10 o’clock closing, why two magistrates cannot deal with all cases now heard before the Licensing Benches. It is manifest that some alteration is necessary.