THE OKATO MERGER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 183, 12 January 1915, Page 8

THE OKATO MERGER.

RATEPAYERS' MEETING. * Owing to the wet weather there was ' i i.ly a small attendance at a meeting of ( latcpavjrs in tile Okato il'oad Board district, neld at Okato on Sarfflirday even-, i to consider the proposed merging o£* the district into the Tarauaki County ; Cumcil. Mr W. ,T. Gray, chairman of file Okato Road Board, presided, and contended that if the County Council dunned to absorb the Okato Road Board district they should have approached the h eal authority. He admitted that per- J sonally : iie had no great 'hostility towards th.» proposed merger, but he was i-ut »t :ill satisfied with the manner in v jiii h tlij proposal had been approached. Continuing, Mr Gray said that the petition was taken round and it.any of tilt settlers signed it, but, he understood, not sufficient to carry tlie merger. Therefore the County Council circularisd the other ratepayers who had not signed and they did not 'know what to do. The matter came before him as chairman of tli-j Road Board, and lie considered it his duty, holding the position he did, to call the ratepayers to- ' gethcr (-0 that they might have an opportunity 'jf expressing their opinions. 1 lie chairman of the County Council ami Councillor McAUum were present at his invitation. Mr Gray went on to refer to the progress Okato district had made ruder the regime of the Road Board, to the fact that the district was served by <;ood roads, and that it 'had raised abot:" i'7ooo for macadamising its roads. Therefore it could hot be said they were not progressive. If they merged into the County Council they wanted to know what benefits tJhey would receive, -vliether their coot ot administration was going to be less—they wore now administering lilieir affairs for about 7 per cent., against 13 per cent., he believed, with tlie county. Tlip rhaivmn then called iijion th-: chairman of tlie Couutiy Council, -Mi J. Brown, to address the meeting. Mr Brown said tiliat at the outset be desired to make it quite clear to the chairman and to tlie ratepayers tiliat they were labouring under a great mistake when they thouglit, or arid that the County Council started tlie proposal. They did nohing of tin sort. As a Couu'iy Council they Iliad had nothing v hatever to do with it. The position was this: A gentleman called at t'.u (cunty office and said 'tfie settlers in the Okato Road Board district were thinking -about merging and asked far information as to the 'procedure that lad to be gone through. Mr Ellis gi*'e il.c information and at the request of latepayers drew up the for them, just as he would have assisted and iis he had always done any ratepayers who desired information. Further, the County Council hail nothing v hatever to do with the man who had taken the petition round. lie (the speaker) 'f,resumed he was acting at the request of settlers. At any rate he certainly was not acting at the request of the County Council. The latteil bad no desire to force -the Okato district or any other district into the county. It was a matter for the ratepayers themselves to decide. Personally he did not cere whether they came in or not, but at the s;>nie time, he was absolutely satisfied in his own mind that it would be to their benefit to do so. The reason the circulars had been sent cut was leeause in the first instance the proposal was to merge a portion of the district. This was a troublesome and expensive procedure, and ratepayers were therefore circularised to ascertain if there was any likelihood of the whole district merging. Dealing with the benefits which lie contended the ratepayers would receive by merging, Mr Brown ■said illiat in the first place tlicy would have batter roads, for the County Council had better facilities. Mr Gray -had 'Mentioned that one of the advantages possessed by the county was a stonecrushing plant, but lie had forgotten to mention that they had also two steam rollers which were doing excellent work and which would in the course of a couple of years or so have .paid for themselves. He alsc stressed the point tlmt t'i - settlers on the by-roads were also getting the advantages of the rollers on their roads, despite the fact that it. had been stated that their work would be confined to the main roads.

In reply to a question the speaker paid lie did not believe in wasting moneq on mud loads. He always advised setVlers to 40 in for a loan and metal them. Ho would sooner Ece two chains of metal spread than 20 chains of mud road formed up. This, he pointed out, was his own personal opinion, but so far as !he Council was concerned 100 chains of formation had been done during the iast year. If the settlers on these by-roads raised loans for metalling, a!:d tliey could not get the work done otherwise, lie could guarantee that tlhey would never have to raise another loan for metalling, because the County Council would always sec that it was kept in a state of repair. If they were thinking of merging their road district in the country, believing that the Council would metal the whole of their roads, j then lie advised them not to merge, because the Council would do no suc'i I thing, but as lie had already intimated, I tl.ev would always be kept in g-od ] cider. Continuing, Mr Brown replied j 'to a letter written by Mr ( J. Wool-: dridgc, clerk to the Okuto ltoad Board, to the Daily News. Dealing with the j question of toll-gates, lie said that whiWt he personally was ill.favour of erecting toll-gates under certain circumstances, that at Okato was erected at the wish of the ratepayers, who preferred the tollgate to an increased rate. The tollgate had brought in about £IOOO last year, and that had bsen the salvation of the Olcato Riding. Further, it was the traffic from tjio Egmont County and others who Biad travelled over th e road that had found tlie greater portion of this money, and not Hie Okato settlers. It had been said that the laws were nnt required, and that tliey were absolutely of 110 use to the ratepayers; but he would just line to ask the ratepayers present where the Okato PJding would have been but fui" the laws. They must have hv-laws to control the traffic, and ratepayer,- :-mii found the by-laws of ureal a-sis lm 1 ire to them when •!. y had a sawmill tearing (heir roads to pieces with timber carting. There was a general howl from all sides until the council dealt with the sawniillcr, and as they could not make a by-law for a eertain section of tli" community all must I be subject to the requirements of the bylaw. Dealing with the question of cost! of administration: the speaker said Mr Wooldridge's figures as ouoled in his! letter Were not correct. He had added; lo the management expenses tlie item 1 from the Blue Book, "other expenditure" ; amounting to £100(1, but this had ab- ' snlutely no bearing on tlie council's man- ! agolllellt expense- The percentage of management, in proportion to the toVil leeei],l > for ihe counties in Taranaki, 1 and he would hack his figure?, as lieing ' absolutely correct, were as follows:-Clif- , ton o.rt:> per cent., Wliangamomona S.HI. Taranaki 7.21. Ifawera S.Rrt Stratford: [5.4!. Kltham .VI. Kgniont ll'atea! 4.1*. The ro-( of administration in the Yalarainiata lload District was l.'i.fi] per. cent.. Moa !o.fi7, Wailara West T.Sl'i. and , Okato 7.27. Thus it would be seen lliat ; nkato was slightly worse than the I alleged horribly misuanaged Taraimki I f'ounty. During the last ten years the j management expenses of the county had I only increased by per cent., not a wrv I large increase. IT,, eould not see (hat 1 tlie Taranaki I'uuntv Council was a' grosr-lv misnia' 'ge,! lauly. as some person- iis-ert"!. >C,,j |,, !l; r ago they had i a visit from the engineer of the Waimatc j South County to inspect their system/ of road-making and bridge-building, find last month tliey bad the engineer of the .

Featherston County Council on a similar mission. They also had many written inquiries about various matters lit connection with the county administration. Proceeding, the county chairman gave the management expenses of various road boards for the year 1008-9, and which have since merged into the county. These were as follows:—Barrett i-1 4s '2d (blue book 1908, page 7321. Carrington £10(1 13s Id, Egmont £49 ,193 sd, Elliot £sl 15s 10d, Frankley £44 lie 4d, Hurford £4 5s 2d, Mangorei '£ls 3s sd, Oakura £2O 17s 9d, Omata £l9 Is (id, Waiwakaiho £24 3s 2d, Werekino £2(i 12s 4d, making a total of £450 12s 2d; sufficient, said the speaker, to build a concrete bridge each year or put 177 yards of metal on the roads. Through the merger practically all this had been saved by the ratepayers. Continuing, Mr Brown dealt with the other objections raised by Mr Wooldridge:—(l) "That control of the district is taken away from the district and handed over to those wlio have no interest whatever in it." This wag absolutely untrue. The council took a general interest in all the roads, and the expenditure in each district was governed by the revenue therefrom. Take | for instance the metal requirements for the ensuing year. Okato Riding was the only riding that was granted the full requirements asked for by the foreman. (2) "Pvatcs from the merged district can be taken and expended anywhere in the riding." This is quite correct, as they could sue a person for his rates fourteen days after they had received their demand, but did they? No, they endeavoured to do the right and honourable thing as far as the revenue from each district would permit to that particular district.. (3) It had been suggested that road boards were better than county councils, because they expended all the rates received from a road on that particular road. That was a thing that was not countenanced by county councils in any shape or form, and there was no legal authority for such a course. ] He knew this course was adopted by manv road boards, and it might be an tquitabij system, but it was not a legal one. To his mind it was an utterly absurd system to adopt to refuse assistance to one set of settlers who were plunging through the mud when they had other roads in credit and finished the year with funds in hand. The council had been charged with delaying the 'Hone Road loan, but the ■position was that the procedure which had been ■fone through prior to the merger of the Werekino Road Board was illegal, and the council had to begin over again.

Mr Brown also referred to the. statements concerning the council's workmen Bwl vigorously defended them, urging that the Tarauaki Countv Council had a road staff equal to any local authority in New Zealand. In reply to questions from Mr Gray. Mr Brown said the rollers were of great value on metalled roads in scarifying and forming them up again. The council bad not power to strike a differential rate, and he emphasised the fact that the Comity Council or tlie Road Board could only do work in proportion to the funds raised, but the County Council Was in a position to get much better ,value for the expenditure than the Road t ßoard. Mr Wooldridge said his main object in writing to the newspapers was to ' awalken interest, and he proceeded to ask the county chairman a number of questions, which the latter answered. Mr Brown during the discussion intimated that a further valuation of £1475 was required to carry the merger, j Councillor McAHum said that since his district had merged in the county about three years ago they had had more work done than in the previous thirty years and would not go back to Road Board management under any consideration. , Councillor Binnie and Councillor AnI drews also spoke in favor of the merger, and a vote of thanks to the county chairman. Couneillor McAllum, and the press terminated the meeting.