BOROUGH RATING

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 5, 1 October 1926, Page 7

BOROUGH RATING

ON UNIMPROVED VALUES

FIRST ADOPTED IN PALMERSTON

Dominion Special. Palmerston North, September 30. The matter of rating ill the Borough of Palmerston North has been brought forward in evidence tendered to the commission appointed by the Government to inquire into the scheme of flood protection proposed for the district, and the figures which have been given in regard to the rating on the unimproved value of properties recalls the fact that the Palmerston North Borough was the first in New Zealand to adopt this svstem. In the year 1892-93 Mr. R. Edwards, then Mayor, and at present a member of the Borough Council, was an ardent advocate for reform in the mode of taxation then in vogue. He introduced to his council his own ideas on the subject, and succeeded in getting a motion adopted asserting the advisability of substituting the rating on unimproved values. This motion was not only carried in the Borough Council, but also at the instance of its chief that body sent a resolution to the Prime Minister setting forth the values of the change in taxation, and asking Cabinet to introduce a Bill providing for it. The Government complied with the motion so far as to introduce such a measure, and actually had it carried in the House of Representatives twice successively (in the years 1891-95 L However, the Legislative Council threw out the measure each time, and it was not until the following year (1896) that the Bill was made law.

After the Act came into force Mr. Edwards set instantly about getting a poll of the ratepayers on the subject of the new taxation, and it was carried The Rating on Unimproved Values Act thus became law in Palmerston North Borough for the first time in any borough in the colony of New Zealand.