PATEA MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. TUESDAY, JUNE 1, 1880. LOCAL SUBSIDIES.

Patea Mail, Volume VI, Issue 527, 1 June 1880, Page 2

PATEA MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. TUESDAY, JUNE 1, 1880. LOCAL SUBSIDIES.

Major Atkinson’s intention to propose the abolition of local subsidies will have to bo modified or very much explainedLocal subsidies cannot be abolished without some substitute. The substitute may be less than the subsidy, but some compensation there must be. All the large boroughs, and many small towns, are up in arms. Their local members have gone to Wellington pledged to resist the abolition, and these pledges will have to be taken into account by a Government that is not firmly backed by a solid majority. The existing system cannot bo swept away by a Ministerial proposal. The change is equivalent to cutting off one half the revenue of local bodies, and expecting the ratepayers to contribute double rates, besides continuing to pay the full amount of colonial taxes. This is not a mere transfer from one pocket to the other. It is an attempt to double the

local rates by sudden pressure, in order that governing Ministers at Wellington may escape the odium which would follow on doubling the taxation. It is a device t,o shift the blame on to the town boards and road boards and county councils, by concealing the political machinery through which the hardship is worked. The reason for this alteration is probably sound, as an abstract proposition, for there must be laxity and occasional extravagance whore local bodies do not supply the whole cost of a local work. Any experienced politician will admit that to be an established fact. Our objection would be, not to the change per se, but to the manner of it. The transition from a sixpenny to a shilling rate should be made by easy stages. Sudden severe change in the rating of property is financially vexatious and politically injurious. Ratepayers believe their burdens are too heavy already. They will not tax themselves to the extent of making up for the former subsidy, and so roads and other local necessaries will everywhere fall into inefficiency. This must soon create new grievances which will be more troublesome to the Government than their present difficulties. What is to be the compensation for the abolished subsidies ? It is suggested that the Government will consent to the local rating of all government property. They cannot do otherwise, after withholding subsidies. To make a merit of that concession would be like trifling with common-sense. This extra source of rating, will be far short of • equalling; the lost subsidy. The “ concession ” is hot enough. '