LOCAL GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION v. TE AROHA TRAFFIC BRIDGE.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXII, Issue 42786, 3 October 1905, Page 2

LOCAL GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION v. TE AROHA TRAFFIC BRIDGE.

SiR, —On reading a letter signed “ Ratepayer,” in your paper of Sept. 28 th, 1 involuntary exclaimed “ fearful ! ” and “ wonderful! ” But on re-reading this astonishing production I concluded I knew the worthy “ Ratepayer,” who on many occasions claims such wonderful results for his chief while “ tooting his own horn,” viz., I helped to do it. Although I know Mon insville for many years and the site on which the township is founded for nearly thirty years, I never knew it as a seaport, requiring its supplies to come by water. It is true that the late Mr W. A. Murray brought some posts for fencing up the Piako river, and probably “ Morrin ” brought some wire that way from the Thames, when he had interests in the hardware line, but please understand, these importations by river were for contract work being done alongside the river many miles from Morrinsville. The claim about the railway is absurd. Let me ask “Ratepayer *’ what about the administrative ability lor his chief, that owing to a small number of ratepayers west and south of the Waikato river, we have during this long administration, been compelled to pay 15 per cent, on the cost and upkeep of the bridge between Cambridge township and Waipa County? In 1897 the settlers of Waipa County petitioned for incorporating those few Piako settlei’s, but our great administration of local government affairs refused, with the result of our having to contribute 15 per cent, to the cost and upkeep of a bridge outside our county. At the last meeting of the County Council this anamoly was rectified, and I affirm, if it were not for the uselul effect produced by the Reform Association the result of the motion proposed by Ur Keely, would be the same as that of \ 1897 on the same subject. In the Auckland Herald a few days since, Mr Hanna of the Assets Board stated that they had within three years paid rates totalling close on £4OOO on the Lockerbie estate, and up to the present not one penny has been spent on the ro ids belonging to this property. Of course not. This money is thrown into the golf of incompetence, over which “ Ratepayer ” and others with their ehief preside. I freely admit Mr CL epmell has a majority at his back in the Council and at the Road Board, and I ask “ Ratepayer ” to tell me how much rates the Chairman and his supporters pay individually and how much they draw in travelling expenses, etc? Ratepaying powers, is a fair criterion of administrative ability, and judging even by that standard, it is time we had a change. And in changing let us secure the services of men capable and able; not mere echos, as at present, we might then be able to secure for Te Aroha a proper traffic bridge, instead of spending our funds at Cambridge as has been done through the supineness of our representatives. I am, etc. Ratepayer Reformed.