TE AWAMUTU.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1930, 18 November 1884, Page 2

TE AWAMUTU.

THB USE AND ABUSE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT. Fouii candidates have been nominated for the county council — Messrs Kay, Hutchinson, Rutherford and Teasdale. There are too many of the&e local elections altogether, and the sooner some of tho governing bodies are done away with the better. Ratepayers are becoming dissatisfied with having to pay two rates, The council can levy a three farthing rate, and the highway board the same, so that between the two people are liable to pay Hd in the pound, by no means a trifling late in the present state of depression. There is no reason why either the council or the highway board should not bs done away with, the people to decide by vote which should be retained. At present each highway board has a clerk and an engineer, but if these bodies were done away with the whole work could bfi done by the council for leas than half the oxpensu ; pi if, on the other hand, the council were abolished, the salaries of clerk, engineer, and cost of collopting rates would be saved to the public. According to Mr Pyke, every six or eight persona in New Zealand have one person to govern them, while each unhappy publican ham five commissioners watching him. What a farce soino of those licensing districts are ! Borne of them are without a hotel ; for instance, the Mangapiko district. None of these benches can be filled without a great deal of expense, and when the commissioners are appointed there is nofhing for them to do. Since Te Awamutu has been made a. town district there is nofc 3, amide hotel in the Rangiaohia Licensing Distpiqfc, and yet the farce will be kept up, as in the case of the Mangapiko district. The sooner the people wake up and alter this state of affairs the sooner there will be lighter taxes to pay, /jnc} more money for local public works,