LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 200, 3 May 1912, Page 8

LOCAL GOVERNMENT BILL

ITS POSSIBLE EFFECT ON NEW PLYMOUTH. SOME APPREHENSIVE REMARKS. Some apprehension as to the extent i New Zealand stands to be affected by the coming into force of the proposed Local Government Bill was expressed to a News reporter yesterday by a gentleman well versed in municipal affairs. From a perusal of the Bill he gathered, he said, that it contained two matters of serious importance to the borough. The first, he proceeded, was a clause empowering the proposed Provincial Council to levy a rate, not exceeding three-' pence in the pound, on the capital value lof the borough. This would ■equal four I shillings in the pound on the annual value. The significance of this proposal was, it was pointed out, seen in the fact that at the present time the special and general rates of the borough only amounted to 3s Id. The 4e rate would be levied over the whole provincial district, and was for the purpose of conftrueting and maintaining roads and bridges, etc., and for expenditure on hospitals, harbor boards, and education in the provincial county. New Plymouth, however, was already well supplied in the matter of municipal requirements. Boiled down, the effect of the clause was that the borough would 1 be liable to be called upon to pay up to 4s in the £ on the annual rating value for expenditure dn pioneering work, outside of its confines. Only in exceptional cases would any of the money be required to be spent in New Plymouth. "POWER TO TREBLE THE RATES." Touching on another point the speaker said that another important matter affecting the borough, in common with other boroughs, was that the Bill authorised the Provincial Council, without first taking any poll, to raise a special loan for any special purposes, and strike a rate over the whole of the district for i the payment of the interest on the loan. I Apparently the only safeguard was that j the consent of the Governor-in-Council would have to be obtained. Our informant concluded by stating that when it was realised that power was given under the Bill to practically treble the rates af the borough, for payment of which it would probably get little or no direct benefit, the local cpmmunity would realise the seriousness of the situation.