The Waikato Times. THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 1877.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 740, 15 March 1877, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

THURSDAY, MARCH 15, 1877.

Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political # # # # #

Here shall the Prcsi the Pkoplk's right maintain, Unawed by influence and uubribed by gain.

That part of the Rating Act which applies to the proceedings against absentees for the enforcement of raies will be received with very general satisfaction as a much needed amendment of the law previously existing. The sale for nonpayment of Bates Act 1870, it is true, empowered the Suprintendent of any province " whenever judgement shall have been recovered and duly entered up of record against the owner of any land in the colony in any court of competent jurisdiction for the recovery of any rate on request of the Governing body by which such rate shall have been made or assessed to satisfy the amount for the time being remaining due on such judgements by payment thereof out of moneys of the province of which he is Superintendent for the time being available for that purpose." The sum to be paid was limited to two years rates with interest, and cost and expences of sale added, and the land was made saleable by the Superintendent to recoup such advances after twelve months. But as far as this province was concerned the answer received from the Supertintendent, when requested to act under the above measure, was, that the Provincial Council had appropriated no money for such purpose, and so the Act became a dead letter. The present Hating Act simplifies all this. It gives to the local body itself, to whom the rate is overdue, the power to sell the land and appropriate the proceeds of the sale, and to give an indisputable title to the land sold. And though there may be some delay involved in proceeding to this extreme measure for the enforcement of payment of rates, the local boards will donbtless avail themselves of so simple a machinery as the Act affords to remedy this evil. In some oases there may be reasons for dealing leniently with the property of absentees, but such reasons scarcely apply to the absentees in "Waikato. They are principally discharged Waikato Militiamen, who were each granted fifty acres of land and an acre town section on their discharge, for the purpose of settling the district. Since then they have left the district, and many of them the colony. Many are dead and have left no representatives. They have never occupied their land, or done any one thing to benefit the district in which their allotments are situated. The land —although there are plenty of would-be purchasers —can neither be leased nor sold, a» the men cannot be found, and have left no agents in New Zealand. An absentee's section is often situated in the middle of the farm of some resident settler who cannot acquire it, nor can he make the owner pay his share of fencing. It thus becomes an eyesore and a nuisance. Its value is being steadily increased by the exertions of the surrounding settlers, and the work performed by the road boards, without one penny being contributed by the owner towards this result. Such being the case, it is difficult to see any hardship in the clauses of the Rating Act, 1876, which ; give to the road boards or

County, power to enforce the pay- i ment of rates by the direct sale of the land. Nay, had the Legislature gone one step further, as was found necessary in Victoria, and passed an Act declaring* that if the owners of these allotments did not lay claim to them within a certain number of years, the land should revert to the Crown, and the Government, on resuming possession, should pay the arrears of rates due to the several road boards, it could not have been said that such persons had been treated with unnecessary harshness. The lands were granted for settlement, and the implied conditions have not been complied with. The man neither occupies the land himself, nor will he permit any one else to do so. The act, as we have said, clears the way of all difficulty. Judgment for the amount of rates due may be given in any Court of competent jurisdiction, not only against the owner, by name, but, if "he be unknown, against him under the designation of “the owner,” The same designation is sufficient in the notice of sale, and where, from the owner being unknown, such notice cannot be personally served upon him, a public notification of the sale is all that is required.