THE VALUE OF THE COUNTY SYSTEM.

Waikato Times, Volume XX, Issue 1715, 3 July 1883, Page 2

THE VALUE OF THE COUNTY SYSTEM.

"♦ • TO TIIK EDITOR. Sir, —A few latepayers in the Newcastle district are agitating the question of '• h niium!; up" the Counties Act in the Waipa. I have no wish in tins letter to discuss the abstract question of the efficiency of county councils vemu road hoards. Arguments that might apply with force under ordinary circumstances in other distiiets, I will endeavour to show, are peculiaily out of place in the Newcastle district —judging, at least, fiom the events of the last few years down to the present. It is advocated, and perhaps with reason, by those who wish the suspension of the Counties Act, that road hoards could, with increased powers, do the necessary work more economically and command a fairer disti ibutiou of funds. Now, Sir, I would like to ask the ratepayers of the Newcastle district, Have the affairs of the district been so well administered by the boards they have elected during the last few years that they should wish the board endowed with larger powers ? Would it not rather seem a step in the right direction to curtail their powers and make the Newcastle district an outlying district under the Counties Act ? The pertinence of these questions must be obvious to those conversant with the history of the doings of the Newcastle District Board during the last few years. It is a notorious tact that its vagaries have caused it to become a laughing stock of every onlooker ; that hundreds of pounds of money have been lost, either through ignorance, carelessness, or spent in litigation for the gratification of private spleen. The gross carelessness and unbusiuess-like way in which the board's affairs have been managed during the last year has culminated in the total loss to the district of at least £100 of its rates. Yet this is the time chosen to ask for an extension of the board's powers ! I say, without fear of contradiction, powers that allow of such a state of affairs need no extension, rather the reverse. Let the ratepayers ponder these facts when canvassed for their signatures. — I am, &c, Onlooker.

Much surprise is felt in Berlin at the sanguinary attacks made on England in the Irish World, and the North German (Jazette wonders at the leniency of the Washington Cabinet in allowing such blood-thirsty vituperations of a Power in amicable relatioua with, America to be 'published. , .; , i;