FINANCE ACTS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 284, 28 August 1935, Page 2

FINANCE ACTS

County Clerk Examines Government’s Work

CONVERSIONS, MORTGAGES

Analysis of the results so far attained from the past year’s legislation affecting local body finance, was made in Wellington yesterday by the president of tlie New Zealand Institute of County Clerks, Mr. F. 11. Hudson, of Horowhenua, at the general conference of the institute. "Since our last conference we have experienced the operations of Statutoryprovisions which have been designed to meet a period of economic adversity, and at the same time reorganise to some extent the financial commitments of local authorities,” be said. “The administration of the 12J per cent, rebate on rates had required the exercise of considerable ingenuity in the financial records, and a strain upon the county clerks’ resources of equitable discernment in order to give effect to a very difficult legislative provision which was somewhat arbitrary in its incidence, although acknowledged in the main to be a means of providing assistance and a pleasant experience to ratepayers in a time of need. Stocktaking Caused.

With the provisions of the Local Authorities Interest Reduction and Loans Conversion Act, 1932-33, and subsidiary enactments, one could not help but be impressed with the mannerin which the attention of local authorities had been focused on what had hitherto been the Cinderella of their

consideration after moneys had once been raised and expended. There had not, in his opinion, been any Statutory measure in recent years which had caused such a financial stock-taking among local authorities, and at the same time provided a form of enlightraent to the lay mind in matters appertaining to the relationship between borrower and lender. In addition, local authorities bad been enabled to reorganise rating impositions in such a manner as tb fall Into step with changing conditions which had received no uncertain emphasis during the period of economic upheaval through which we bad passed during recent years. There remained, of course, several vital problems in connection with the financial administration of local authorities, among the foremost of which was the unstable position of rates payable on properties under lease from or mortgaged to the Crown. In the welter of the difficult times through which the county had passed, it was hardly reasonable to expect n ther than that every avenue of national and local administration would be called upon to experience a certain measure of financial instability and loss, and this fact must be faced and accepted. The concern, however, of local authorities was to know exactly where they stood in the midst of the Statutory measures enacted to relieve among others the position of the State mortgagor. Problem Remains. While the operations of the Mortgage Corporation of New Zealand Act, 1934-35, indicated that the corporation should be liable for rates to the same extent as if it were a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1933, in respect of new mortgages, there still remained the problem of the accumulated unpaid rates on departmental mortgages which retained the limi•tation of liabil’ty previously enjoyed by the Crown. Apparently, the fabric of the Rating Act had received a very severe breach in the case of Rex. v. Inglewood Borough, and to-day, owing to the involved position of some State mortgagors, local authorities in some cases were placed in a position of impotence and uncertainty. “I submit that the time is ripe in fairness to local bodies (who, in common with the national Government, have borne a fair share of the heat and burden of the times) when a clearcut policy should be indicated by the Government as to how far this hole in the purse of local authorities can be patched up and finally mended,” Mr. Hudson concluded.