EACH EUROPEAN CARRIES A MAORI

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 79, 24 June 1927, Page 16

EACH EUROPEAN CARRIES A MAORI

UNPAID TAXATION HOSPITAL-LEVY PROBLEM (From Our Resident Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. I'HE troubles of many counties through defaulting native landholders were emphasised before the Hon. J. A. Young, Minister of Health, to-day, when Mr. A. E. Jull, who was advocating the counties’ claim in respect to hospital rate, declared that to penalise communities because of their poverty was wicked. Yet this was what happened in many places where the hospital levy was struck on the rateable value of, properties, and where the rates collected were absolutely nil. In Waitomo County £IO.OOO of rates on native property remained uncollected, yet these were included when the basis of the hospital levy was being assessed. Provision was made last year for the exemption of native rates in certain cases, but this did not remove the problem. Mr. Young: Are you going to suggest a remedy? Mr. Jull: I am no Solomon, nor will I say that this problem is a simple one. Mr. Jull pointed out, however, that in one Northern county there were 900 Europeans and a similar number of natives, with the result that every European carried a Maori on his shoulders. The native remnant was not decreasing and, although in some parts of the country Maoris were farming their land successfully, many did not pay rates. Mr. Young, in reply, said that he appreciated the difficulties, but considered that the existing provisions were as near to a solution of the problem as could be secured—that was that where there were native lands within a county, upon which the county council will make a declaration that it is impossible to collect rates, this land should be exempted from the assessment made by hospital boards for levy purposes. This should be a burden upon the whole of the hospital district, and not upon a specific county. ‘This.” added Mr. Young, “is my own personal opinion, apart from that as Minister of Health. I want to make that quite clear. I will send this forward for consideration. I realise the burden which country districts have to suffer.” In respect to a suggestion that a tax should be made upon certain incomes in the assessment of the hospital levy, Mr. Young said that he could not see any hope for the adoption of such a course with the country in its present state of mind.