THE Mount Ida Chronicle FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 1876.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 386, 4 August 1876, Page 2

THE Mount Ida Chronicle FRIDAY, AUGUST 4, 1876.

The provisions of the County Bill are worth careful scrutiny, although it may be very doubtful whether the Government will be able to carry their measures this session, in sufficiently coherent form to give them practical effect. Still, as the proposals themselves are the nucleus of important changes, whatever, shape those changes may ultimate.ly assume, the initiatory measures are ; of value as a record of the time. It will not affect their importance, as constituting a landmark in our history, even though the the Ministry itself is immediately displaced.

The Counties are to be divided- into ridings, by proclamation., Eaeh:riding will return one or more Councillors to the County Council, but, the Chairman of the Council will be elected by the County electors as whole. The ridings have no practical existence, except for divisional pm*poses. Eoad Boards within Counties may merge into suclv Counties, and a provision is to be introduced into the Municipal Act to enable Municipalities also, on certain conditions, to merge into Koad Board Districts or Counties. In a few cases this merging of boroughs might be desirable, but the difference in the subsidies would have to be considered. Boroughs are entitled to £1 to £1 from Consolidated Pund, and £1 to £1 from Land Revenue, whereas, as County rateable property, the subsidy would be only £1 to £l. If subsidies were .permanent beyond doubt, then the Municipalities would adhere to their, own government; in every case. County rates will be made up of rates in the County other than Road Board :and Municipal,rates—li-. censes outside Municipalities, gold re venue,.proportion of '-balance of (Pro"viricial District)'land revenue," fines and "penalties under County Act, moneys received by way of subscription or voluntary donation. As many are under the impression that a County containing a large area of Crown lands would obtain some extraordinary, advantage over another' in which the laud was all in the hands of private holders, it may be as well to point outhow the -distribution of the balance •due to Otago will be divided among the Counties within it. In. this -we are assuming, as we are bound to do in considering the bill at all, that there will be a balance for division, as well as sufficient to pay the charges to Municipalities^&c..' X'et.us suppose that £IOO,OOO ■ balance is • available for Otago, what proportion would the County of Clyde get? To. arrive at this we must further assume what proportion the area of Clyde bears to the area of. the whole Province, and what proportion the amount of rates collected in Clyde would bear to the total rates collected in Otago. "We take Clyde to be one-tenth, in area, and to collect one-fiftieth of the total rates collected in all the Counties in Otago (Municipal rates are excluded) Clyde's share would, on these assumptions be £G,SOO. Now the present land revenue of the Blount Ida Electoral District alone is over £9OOO, and the total present land revenue of the County called Clyde, would be' nearly £2.0,000. It will therefore be seen that on . so inconceivable 'an assumption of a balance of £ 100,000 being available, there is no approach by three to one of what is popularly talked of by our district Centralists as localisation of land revenue. As soon as Mr. Haughton's GoldSelds report is circulated we shall be able to give an approximately accurate statement of what the actual revenue of such a County as Clyde would be, leaving out of consideration the land contribution, and any nue arising from the power graciously conferred upon us to rate ourselves. This brings us to the questions, What is rateable property ? and Who practically will have the power of imposing- and expending rates, and the disposing

when collected ? Pastoral property is rateable upon the annual value to let, not "being less than 5 per cent on value fee simple. All other property, with very few exceptions, is to be rateable." If valuedat less than £SO, the ratepayer will have one vote ; if lesa than £IOO, two jotes;. £lsjD, three votes; £350, four votes; above £BSO, five votes. Although no rate at all should be struck the voting power for disposal of goldfields revenue, license fees, &c, would be as indicated. In other words property represented in this district as pastoral would have a great voice in the expenditure of revenue, which if it were strong enough, it would not contribute asi ngle sixpence to. It, therefore, beco - es of great importance to consider what would be the relative voting power in the County of Clyde as between the actual and possible contributors of revenue. In this article we cannot undertake to solve this problem.

The Counties will have to maintain and build Hospitals, contribute to Central Hospitals and Asylums, support Libraries, keep up and form main roads; after five years be liable for primary education, after four years be alsoliable to contribute for Police. In addition, the Government can interfere at any time, and enforce construction of, or construct public works, and charge the cost upon the land revenue. An idea can be obtained from this sketch of the actual financial position of the Counties as proposed. For purposes of comparison we give the expenditure of money in the Provincial Electoral Districts of Mount Ida, Clyde, and Wakatipu for the last year, under votes of the Provincial Council: . y\ Mount Ida ... ... ... ... £6,060 Duuatan (including Cromwell) £14,609 Wakatipu ... ... ... ...£10,283 To our mind, if the proposals are financially necessary in order to enable the Colony to maintain its credit, the progress of the interior is entirely put an end to. Every County that has no unsold lands will join in bringing pressure upon the Waste Lands Administration to sacrifice the few and weak Counties that still are available for settlement. "Within five years the interior of Otago would be sold for whatever it would fetch.