TO JOIN OR NOT TO JOIN

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 114, 4 August 1927, Page 18

TO JOIN OR NOT TO JOIN

LIVELY MEETING AT AVONDALE MR. TIARKS CONDEMNS AMALGAMATION “ THE only reason why the Auckland City Council is not I in the Bankruptcy Court is because a council cannot go bankrupt,” said Mr. H. Tiarks, Mayor of Avondale, addressing a public meeting at Avondale last evening in opposition to the proposed amalgamation with the City. The interest attached to the subject was indicated by the large attendance and the lively fire of interjections which punctuated the Mayor’s address.

“THE City Council hold up Point Chevalier as a bait,” said Mr. Tiarks. “Well, have a look at it,” he continued. “It reminds me of a clean shirt on a dirty body. Look at their back streets.” A Voice: They’re good streets. The speaker’s reply wa.s lost in the ensuing confusion. When it had subsided Mr. Tiarks left an obviously touchy subject to deal with the question of city rates He contended that in return for the high rates that they would be compelled to pay, very little benefit would result to the borough. A Voice: The rates here are quite high enough. Mr. Tiarks: And who put them up? Voices: You were on the council at the time. Mr. Tiarks: I helped because I was forced to. The Deputy-Mayor and myself have been fighting your battles for years, and seven weeks after you elected us, you started this amalgamation proposal. “I will leave it to your sense of honour to say whether we could rectify the muddle in seven weeks.” (Ap-r plause.) A LIVELY INTERLUDE Referring to a letter which recently appeared in the local paper, Mr. Tiarks said that if Mr. Richardson was in the hall he would say there and then that the high rates were the result of his mismanagement of his own ward. (Uproar.) Mr. P. Richardson: You were on the finance committee; what were you doing? Mr. Tiarks: I was trying to tell the Mayor that in listening to you he was driving the council into bankruptcy. “I said then, and I say now, that you know as much about a bal-ance-sheet as you know of a Chinese laundry ticket." Continuing amidst considerable excitement, Mr. Tiarks stated that he had said that when he went on the council he would see that they got a decent set of books, and he had got them. (Applause.) A Voice: What did they cost? Mr. Tiarks: About £2OO, and it was the best money that has ever been spent. This is the first council in Avondale that has ever known where it was. Only for my Deputy-Mayor and myself you would not have been any wiser to-day. “Whether you amalgamate or not will rest solely with you,” said Mr. Tiarks. “You will call the tune and you will also pay the piper.” The Mayor said that he was very sorry that when the petition for a poll was presented to him the promoters did not tell him what terms they wanted for giving their beautiful borough away. “I have never yet sold anything without first fixing the price, so I took it on myself to write and ask them what they were going to pay for it,

not exactly in those words, but that is what it meant. “But the City Council is just as cunning as we are,” he added, “and they replied that they had referred the question to the finance committee. You know what that means. “They are going to raise another big loan shortly, but there is nothing about Avondale in it. When we asked them what they were going to do about the G.O.C. bus time-table they said they would issue one on August 15. They knew that our poll would be held on August 13, and by that time they would know which way the cat was going to jump.” PRESENT SYSTEM THE BEST Mr. Tiarks urged those present not to return to rating on capital or annual value, such as would result from amalgamation. Under that system, he contended that their industry and thrift would be heavily taxed. Mr. Tiarks also referred to a circular letter signed by Messrs. W. J. Holdsworth, G. Fowlds, A. G. Lunn, T. Bloodworth and L. A. Eady, in which a metropolitan system of local government was advocated in preference to amalgamation. The best form of local government, he said, was the form now in existence. Mr. A. M. Bryden, Deputy-Mayor of Mount Eden, also spoke against the proposal. In his own district, the question of amalgamation had been definitely settled some four years ago. So great were the improvements that had since been made that he felt sure that if a vote on the question were taken there to-morrow it would be even more drastically turned down.