Canals and Rating.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 3, Issue 202, 9 June 1914, Page 3

Canals and Rating.

| TO THE EDITOR.!

Sir, —1 feel sure you will permit me to have a little space to draw the special attention of your readers of what may shortly prove a matter of vital importance to most of them. It i 9 pretty widely known that a Commission has been set up to go fully into the question cf constructing inlar.d waterways connecting the Kaipara, Waitemata ard M»nukau Harbours ar.d the Waikato river, and one of the matters to be inquired into is:— "Whether the adjacent districts should be subject to rating to provide a guarantee for loans which might be necessary to provide funds for constructive purposes, and as to whether those districts should be rated to provide for losses in working." It will be remembered that not very long ago the Harbour Board endeavoured to secure support for a lock in the Waiuku estuary, as the first step in a scheme of interlinking canals. Their proposals included the levying of a rate for construction upon the greater pait of West Franklin, reaching almost as far as the boundary of Pukekohe borough. The proposal to commence the work in the middle was so helplessly inept that the people of Waiuku hud not much hesitation in turning it down, but the Harbour Board was not discouraged, and at its instigation the present Commission was set up. It is very clear that should the Commission find that "adjacent districts" ought to be rated little or none of the Franklin county—including the borough and town districtswill es-ape, feeing that it was necessary to include so large an area to pay for our small portion of the projected work. The proposal to place upon land already over-loaded with rates the burden of what Bhould be a purf ly commercial undertaking, standing or falling by its ability or otherwise to pay its way, -is a matter serious enough to call for grave reflection upon the part of the owners. The decision of the Commission upen this matter will ro doubt depend in great measure upon the evidence offered tu it, and 1 am writing in the hope of stirring up the people of (his district to something like united action in one direction or the other.—l am, etc , HENRY E. R. L. WILY.