ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

Patea Mail, Volume V, Issue 490, 10 January 1880, Page 2

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

{To the Editor of the Patica Mail.) Srk, —-It being an Englishman's privilege t,o grumble, I will, with your kind permission, indulge in a little aueiifc local taxation. L see that two letters have recently appeared in the Mail, one signed “ Jnqm'ier,” I believe, and the other “ Moore Hunter,” re sueing for this year’s rates, without first recovering those due for the previous year. I cannot agree with Mr Hunter in construing Mr Bate’s notice as applying to next years rates—that is to say, the year 1880-81, biit to this year’s rates, viz., 1879-80. lam afraid the Hawera Road Board is sinking with rapid strides to the level of the Patca County Council, as the members of the Rond Board must know that, by collecting the rates for the year 1879-80, when at the same time the rates for the year 1878-79 remain uncollected, is doing the resident owners or occupiers a grave injustice. For instance, say, an absent owner of an acre of land, who has so owned it for the last ten years, is rated as unimproved land, while the adjoining land, which is occupied. is valued with the improvements at a much higher rate ; and what is more, the road Board summons and makes him pay, while the absentee, whose land is enhanced by the expenditure of the resident’s rates, pays nothing. I think, re M. Hunter’s letter, that if Mr Bate, in the capacity of rate collector, evinced a greater “ burning desire,” it would benefit the rate-payers, instead of as at present—those that don’t pay their rates. Curses, both loud and deep, are heard ori every side as to the amount of taxes which are demanded just now. There is the Land Tax, Road Board tax, and then comes the County Council tax, although the latter is only demanding five months’ rates, which, by-the-bye, had it been one shilling in the pound, instead of sixpence, would have been rather stiff, particularly as the County Council wasted between three and four hundred pounds illegally trying to upset the Road Board valuations, instead of the money being expended on the roads for the benefit of the ratepayers.—l am &.C. „ HOPEFUL.