BURDEN OF RATES ON BACK COUNTRY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 51, 2 March 1939, Page 6

BURDEN OF RATES ON BACK COUNTRY

SCHEME FOR ALLEVIATION SPECIAL STATE LOCALITIES. Speaking at a meeting of the Waitotara County Council yesterday, the chairman (Mr. W. Morrison), who is a member of the Main Highways Board and vice-president of the New Zealand Counties’ Association, envisaged the day when back country land of poor quality, which was being forced out of production by high rates and costs, would be cut off from the better class of farming land and managed under special rating areas subsifli'”.fl by the State. Mr. "orrison said that the resolutions . , tod by local body representatives and the Farmers’ Union in the Wanganui district, urging classification of land in the back country, had gone before a committee representing the Counties’ Association and the Farmers' Union. Those same resolutions had been practically adopted by Unit committee as they applied to most of the North Island. The South Island viewpoint had yet to be added. That was in the hands of Mr. W. W. Mulholland, president of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union. In the South Island, in the high country, problems much the same were being met with. "What I thought was a very reasonable suggestion was made by Mr. W. J. Polson,” Mr. Morrison said. "He suggested that the poorer land in the back country, all along the inland counties on this coast, be cut off. classified and put under the control of the Government.”

Mr. G. Palmer (Brunswick): A sort of Government county? Mr. Morrison; something of that sort. Tt could be administered by a body which was representative of the Government and of the farmers on the land. It might then be possible to make it economic for them to produce something off that country. It would free it from being a burden on other land of better type. We are hoping that tvhen the Counties’ Association, Farmers’ Union and Sheep Owners’ Federation go along to the Government something will be done along those lines.