THE LAPSED RATES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 412, 28 November 1874, Page 3

THE LAPSED RATES.

[TotU Editor)

Sib, — The question of the mode of rating and collecting rates in the municipality is now pressed on the public notice. Not to speak of anomalies in the assessment, the method of levying the rates, as well as collecting them, coupled with the fact that no notice has been given of assessment, seems to be irregular. It is customary in vestry meetings in England, ere levying a rate, to calculate thelikely expenditure for the year, and to inquire if any of theprevious rales have not been paid. I humbly submit that a like practice ought to obtain here. It is anything but pleasant for people to be allowed to remain ignoiant of the value at which they have been assessed, and then after three years to have an account handed in, in which the assessment is, as in some cases, nearly throe times the netfc annual value of the property ; or a 9 numbers of the citizens, who have bought properties within the Municipality, have found to then: cost, old rates not paid up on their property, when it passed into their hands, charged to their account. Had the Council taken the rate collector to task each year, before allowing next year's rates, and enforced payment at the proper time, the annoyance of such a proceeding would have been avoided, and the Corporation in better funds. As it is, the present action of enforcing lapsed rates is nothing better than making the victims of this imposition bear the consequences of the carelessness of previous Town Councils and the negligence of fchpir own servants. — I am, &c., One ov the Victims.