COLLECTING NATIVE RATES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 91, 13 May 1909, Page 3

COLLECTING NATIVE RATES.

. INEFFECTIVENESS OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM. Br Telegraph.— Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. A conference of representatives of county councils' which have large areas of native lands within their boundaries was held to-day for the purpose of discussing the ineffectiveness of the provisions of the Rating Act of 1904 in regard to the rating of native lands. The conference had been convened by the Raglan County Council, which for two years attempted to collect the rates ironi the native owners within that county. In the two years the Council was able to collect only £7 oddj and wrote off no less a sum than £2936. The Act provides that when a judgment is' obtained on rates against a natice owner it cannot he enforced without the consent of the Native Minister, and it was stated that in all cases in which this consent had been sought, it had, for various reasons, been refused. Some of the other representatives stated that their councils had not attempted to collect the rates on native lands, js they recognised that it was' impossible to do so. The opinion was expressed by several speakers that the question was inseparable from the general native lands question, and that the solution was to be found in the removal of the present restriction on native lands and the placing of the natives on the same footing as Europeans', possessing the same privileges and sharing the same responsibilities. A resolution was agreed to drawing attention of the Governmers to the defective legislation, and asking that a remedy be provided.