MUNICIPAL MATTERS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 246, 18 July 1928, Page 12

MUNICIPAL MATTERS

REQUIREMENTS OF NEW BILL trading undertakings QUALIFICATIONS OF COUNCILLORS X large number of amendments, many of them suggested l>v the Municipal Conference, are included in the Municipal Corporations Amendment Bill read a first time in the House of Representatives yesterday. The municipal franchise is affected to the extent that if voters holding the residential qualification only do not vote at the election of a council they shall not be included on the new roll unless they malic direct application. The section in the principal Act (1920) requiring a Magistrate to hold .an inquiry into an election on the petition of a candidate and a number of the electors is repealed. The position which has debarred many public men from entering local politics by reason of possible business associations with the local bodies is eased to the extent that a member of a council may accept a contract up to £lo_or two more contracts not exceeding £2o, the Audit Office, on the application of the council; having the right in special circumstances to increase the limit to £5O. Au interest in any loan raised by the council or in a newspaper in which the council inserts advertisements or in a lease granted by the council is not to constitute a disqualification from holding office. Provision is made for the payment to a newlyelected Mayor or member of the councillor for work done prior to election. The date for the election of Mayors and councils is altered 1 by the Bill from the last Wednesday in April to the first Wednesday in May. The Bill provides that if the same person is elected as Mayor and as a councillor of any borough on the same day he shall be deemed to have vacated his office as a councillor, and the highest on the list of unsuccessful candidates is to be appointed in his stead. Councils are to be empowered to enter into contracts up to three years with any of their servants with respect to tenure of office.

Power is given to the local bodies to subsidise sick benefit funds established by their employees, the authority under the Bill in this connection being antedated to April 1 of this year. The control over halls and other places of entertainment is to be strengthened to the extent that the councils may attach conditions to the licenses and withhold or cancel a license on the grounds of the licensee’s bad conduct. The right of appeal to the Supreme Court is given. The Bill requires that councils shall maintain a profit and loss account with respect to their trading undertakings. Provision is to be made for charging depreciation in respect of the undertakings, the fund thus created to be held by three commissioners, who are to invest the fund and hold it for making renewals to the plant. They may also use the money for making advances to the council for the extension of the undertaking concerned. Another section gives councils power to make by-laws defining residential and business zones, and regulating or prohibiting the use of the area for outside these purposes. SURVEYORS’ NEEDS AMENDMENTS TO LAW x PROPOSED MORE ELASTIC PROVISIONS Two Government measures affecting surveyors were read a first time in the House of Representatives yesterday. Provision for the registration and licensing of surveyors is already made by the Surveyors’ Institute and Board of Examiners’ Act, 1908, the provisions of which are not considered to be sufficiently elastic to enable certain rules to be made to secure a proper measure of reciprocity between New Zealand, Australia, and other places. As an amendment of the Act is required to bring this about, opportunity has been taken to separate the laws as to registration and licensing of surveyors from the provisions relating to the incorporation and proceedings of the Surveyors’ Institute, and at the same time to bring the law as to registration into conformity with more modern statutes dealing with similar matters, as, for example, the Engineers’ Registration Act, 1924. These objects are being achieved by the Surveyors’ Registration Bill and the Surveyors’ Institute Amendment Bill. The hope was expressed by Sir John Luke (Wellington North) that consideration would be given to men who, while absent from New Zealand on active service, missed their opportunity to qualify. He trusted that nothing would be rushed through the House that would prevent justice being done to those good citizens who served their country in its hour of need.

BIG-IRON PRODUCTION

BOUNTY FROM STATE. Bounty paid by the Government to the Onakaka Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., for the rear ended March 31 amounted to £4486 195.. according to a report laid on the table iu the House of Representatives yesterday. This sum was paid iu respect of 3354 tons of pig iron.

THE RABBIT NUISANCE .AMENDING LEGISLATION ALTERATION IN BOARDS PAYMENT OF SUBSIDIES Consolidation of the existing law regarding the rabbit nuisances with amen - meats which have been found necessa y have been included m the Rabbit UIS mice Bill, introduced into the House of Representatives by Governor-General s Message late last night. . , The Bill gives power to the Agricultural Department or a rabbit board, when obliged to undertake the rabbiting of a property because of the owner s neglect to do so, to collect and sell the skins, giving the owner credit for 75 per cent, of the net proceeds. The protection of any animal which is a natural enemy of the rabbit is at present Dominion-wide, but it is proposed to limit it to specified districts. Authority is to be given to keep under proper restriction angora and other rabbits carrying valuable fur. _ Fairly considerable changes m the law are proposed in connection with rabbit boards, but they are designed to meet the present-day requirements ot the boards as represented by their association. There are now three distinct kinds of boards, but if the Bill passes there will be only one kind. The new boards will be able to levy their rates on any one of the bases now applying to the three different kinds of boards. . The Bill provides that all existing boards shall enure and that both new and existing boards may change their basis of rating from the stock basis to the rateable value or acreage basis, from the rateable value basis to the acreage basis, or vice versa, but not from the rateable value or acreage basis to the stock basis. In every case a poll of the ratepayers will determine the form. The subsidy in the case of existing boards is not proposed to be changed ; the only alteration in this direction being that in future boards formed with a smaller area than 20.000 acres will not receive a subsidy. The general election of the boards is to take place on the same day as the county elections. Stock owners’ boards are to be given power to raise loans. HANMER CROWN LEASES MORE PERMANENT FORM PROPOSED An important change is proposed in the Hamner Crown Leases' Bill, introduced into the House of Representatives by Governor-General’s Message yesterday. ' . The primary object of the Bill is to afford the Crown lessees in the township of Hamner and the immediate vicinity an opportunity of securing a more permanent form of lease in respect of lands held by them. The majority of these leases are for a term of 42 years without right of renewal. They were granted under the powers embodied in the Land Act of 1924. There are 49 leases of township sections covering an area of 34 acres 6 perches and 19 leases of suburban areas aggregating 402 acres, making a total of 68 leases covering an area of 436 acres. The Bill provides a new form of lease up to 21 years with perpetual right of renewal under the I’iiblic Bodies Leases Act. All applications for new leases are to be considered by a special committee which will investigate each case on its merits and submit specific recommendations. There is a clause iu the Bill providing that the Crown may resume possession of land containing mineral springs or natural gas. SAMOAN CATECHISM LABOUR LEADER’S ALLEGATION The catechism concerning the legal status of the mandated islands reported to have been circulated in Samoa was alleged by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. H. E., Holland) in the House of Representatives yesterday to have been issued by the Administrator in November last. In asking the Prime Minister what action the Government had taken in regard to the catechism, Mr. Holland said that the matter had been referred to in an Auckland newspaper, and had apparently been sent by wireless from London tc the “Christian Science Monitor.” The whole thing, added Mr. Holland, Was calculated to reflect a good deal of harm on New Zealand. Had the Government, he asked, taken any action with respect to that most extraordinary action on the part of the Administrator? “The Government has no knowledge of the document,” replied the Prime Minister (Right Hon. J. G. Coates). “The newspapers have not correctly conveyed the point of view of the Government—” Mr. Holland: I can assure you it was issued by the Administrator. The Prime Minister: I am not aware of that. lam only stating what the Government knows of the matter. Inquiries will be made, and I will take an opportunity later of advising the House as to the position. A USEFUL ASSET PRIME MINISTER’S GENTLE JIBE Au amusing little verbal fencing match took place between the Prime Minister and Mr. Holland (Leader of the Opposition) in the House of Representatives yesterday. Jlr. Coates was accusing the Opposition, and Mr. Holland in particur lar, of misquoting the Samoan Report. “In fact,” said the Prime Minister, “we shall have to get out a pamphlet on the subject to kill these misquotations, lhe Leader of the Opposition evidently thought this would supply more grist for the political mill. “ O that mine eneniv would write a book, quoted Mr. Holland. The Prime Minister was not slow in finding a retort. ‘‘But the honourable gentleman is not an enemy—lie's a friend —ivliy. he’s the finest asset I have in New’ Zealand!”

CASH ON DELIVERY

MANY PETITIONS PRESENTED. Nearly every member of Parliament presented in the House yesterday petitions praying that the arrangement between the New Zealand Postal Department ami the British Post .Office permitting the importation of articles into New Zealand under the cash on delivery system be abolished. The petitions carried 2941 signatures. A laugh was raised when the Post-master-General (Hon. W. Nosworthy) presented a petition that had been scut to him.