CITY RATES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 246, 17 October 1922, Page 6

CITY RATES.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —I notice that a ratepayer of' Takapuna objected to pay the small sum of 2/G for the repairs of a tap in advance. One of the councillors sympathised with the ratepayer, and the matter was referred to the Finance Committee. For years the ratepayers of the city paid half-yearly their rates in advance." Last ' year and this year, without the sanction of tlie ratepayers or authority of Parliament the demand is made for the city rates twelve months in advance. Xot all of us are as favourably placed as the Mayor and his council, arid it is a great deal easier for some of us to pay £12 : per annum in two instalments than in ' one. The plea of economy, which one of the clerks advanced, does not hold water. Our Mayor is like Mr. Maaeev who complacently tells us h,. aa ved a farthing, but forgets to tell us he squandered a pound. City economies during his term of office have not pie vented the rates from doubling '~.] while some of our public bodies have lessened the rates lately, not our council T am. etc.. ' RATEPAYER, "i