CONVENTS AND RATES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 20, 25 January 1911, Page 3

CONVENTS AND RATES.

PALMEKSTON, 24th January. In connection Tvith the question of the rating of convent property, Ihe authorities of St. .Patricks Church, PaJmerston North, have claimed a refund of the ;rates paid last year to the Borough Council, amounting to £40, and have also declined to pay similar rates this year. The ground of refusal is a recent decision of the Appeal Court in a Chriktchurch case that convents are I immune from rating under the Act. J [In connection with the above, our Palmerston North corespondent tele- | graphs : — Last year the authorities of I St: Patrick's Church paid £40 rates [ upon the convent, etc., under protest, conditionally on that sum being returned should a case then pending between the Feilding Borough Council and the Convent at Feilding be decided in favour of the Sisters of Mercy, who contended that their convent was a school, and was not carried on wholly for profit, and was therefore exempt under the Act. The Feilding Council won its case, and on appeal to the Supreme Court Mr. Justice Cooper upheld Mr. Thomson's (S.M.) decision, and declined leave for further appeal. The Feilding Council, as an act of grace, have never insisted on the collection of the rate. Subsequently, in a similar case- in Christchurch, which was referred direct to the Court of Appeal, a decision was given in favour of the Sisters of ilercy.]

For Colds in the Head and InSueiiza, Woods' Great Peppermint Cure, Is 6d and