SELF-GOVERNMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 280, 25 November 1937, Page 16

SELF-GOVERNMENT.

LOCAL BODIES' WISH.

DRAINAGE INQUIRY.

Hearty endorsement of the aims of the Auckland Drainage Board was expressed at the afternoon session yesterday of the commission of inquiry by Messrs. J. H. Reich. 7. >». Goldstinc and H. A. Anderson, respectively clerk of the Mount Koskill Rpad Board, chairman of the One Tree Hill ' Road Board, and Mayor of Mount Albert Borough. Respecting the suggestion, however, that the Drainage Board should be the supreme controlling and operating body, Mesers. Goldstine and Anderson strongly urged that practice had shown that equal efficiency at leee expense was obtained by the present method of each local body designing, controlling and operating its own district reticulation, and acting in conjunction with a general policy governed by the Drainage Board. They held that if the board took over the lo«»l reticulations they would have to do so on a valuation basis which would ca«t a heavy burden on ratepayers without adequate recompense in service. Concerning the problem of equitable rating in areas unequally populated, they supported rating on a basis averaging rateable capital value and population.

Reviewing the arguments placed before the commission during the day, Mr. J. Stanton (for the Drainage Board) commented on the helpful manner in which the points had been presented. He mentioned that ae most of the local bodies concerned were constituents of the board their views naturally reflected those of the board. Counsel referred, incidentally, to the board's concern that the North Shore authorities might be brought within the scope* of the inquiry, to which the chairman'replied that the members of the commission would give that aspect due consideration.