ROAD BOARDS AND DOUBLE RATES

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2418, 10 January 1888, Page 2

ROAD BOARDS AND DOUBLE RATES

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I observe your Raglan correspondent suggests that by road boards merging in the county, double rates may be avoided, meaning I presume that half the money would be saved. I shall be glad if he will show how the saving can be effected. Tliero are|some throe or four road boards in the county of Raglan : but the Times circulates in several other counties, all fully equipped with road boards, and all deeply interested in this discovery, so he will have a big audience. Has he read section 148 of the County Act, which gives the council power to levy six farthings in tho pound in districts where there are no road boards, but restricts the rate to three farthings where there are road boards? So soon there, fore, as a road distriot merges, the ratepayers in it become at once liable to a levy of six farthings. There is no getting over that. The road board maximum rate being throe farthings, between the two bodies the total sum payable cannot exceed six farthings—the same as the other. Your correspondent's saving consequently can't coine in here: the liability is not extinguished, it is simply transferred from the road board to the county council. Besides, the road board are under no obligation to raise their full rate. They can levy as little as they like; and as large sums have been already expended on their roads, a small rate might suffice to keep them in order. To enable your correspondent thoroughly to grapple with the subject, 1 shall submit for his consideration a precise case. Take a property valued at £100. Tho ratepayers who have merged, and who are liable to a rate of six farthings, would on such a property be due 12s Gd. A road board strikes a rate of one twentieth of a penny, amounting to sd, county rate, 6s 3d, total, Us Bd. Here the road board pay.nent, instead of being double that of the county, is just about the half. Exactly the reverse of your correspondent's anticipation. But your correspondent will perhaps be able to show how half of 6s 8d can be saved by becoming liable for 12s 6d.—l am, etc., Road Board.