HOMING CHICKENS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 12, 16 January 1933, Page 9

HOMING CHICKENS

HARBOUR DEBTS

FARMERS AND THE BOARD

RATES, HATES, FATES

The small port policy (sometimes known as the "Call with big liner.at your farm" policy) is undergoing the test of depression. ■ Some small port propositions are in better1 positions than others, but in certain cases the farmerratepayer shows a tendency to break right away. Maungatapere residents at a. 'meeting recently said that the Whangarei Harbour Board ought to go bankrupt in prefereneo to levying a rate that would make the farmers bankrupt. '• ■' • WAS THAMES SHREWD? ' '' Thames was : shrewd,'' said one speaker, who evidently thinks that local body receivership is preferable to the levying of a rate for past expenditure. He apparently did not realise" that both might happen.■ . Mr. L. Reynolds, mover of Maungatapere's protesting resolution, said:l — "The whole of the farming community should unite and say, 'We will not pay the rate.' It is preposterous" that a local body, knowing that wo are working from daylight to dark for 7d a lb for butterfat, should calmly sit down and levy us Id in the £." He moved that the meeting strongly resented and protested against tife levying of a rate which, in view of. the financial position of the farming community, faced with bankruptcy, would constitute an intolerable burden which they would not be able to meet. Mr. C. Stevens: Why shouldn't the board go bankrupt f-.s well as us? Mr. Eoynolds said the farmers were, on the verge of bankruptcy, but he was wrong. Nine out of every ten of them are bankrupts. We should, refuse to pay; the board cannot sue the whole lot of us. ALTERNATIVE BANKRUPTCY. Mr. J. H.-Hay ward: What is the alternative? Mr. Eeynolds: Let the board go bankrupt instead of the farmer. • The other side of the case was stated by Mr. Hayward, who said: "Wo have to face facts. Some years ago the board went to the ratepayers and got authority to raise the loan.1 It has spent the- money, and the fact remains that the ratepayers authorised it and have to pay for.it. We are responsible for the finding of the money." Mr. Eeynolds: The board has spent all its money, and what has it got to show for it? . It has dredged out a bit of river, but I do not think the harbour is any better now than when it started. Every member of the board should bo thrown overboard. The secretary-engineer of the board, Mr. William Fraser, who was present to receive the' attack, remarked that all the meeting needed was a gallows to hang the board on. He said he had been advised on the question of the levying of the- rate and assured the meeting that the board had power to levy the rate .of 3d .in the &. The board, he said, did not anticipate it would collect all pf the rate. ,•: • " The rate was struck by the board ten years ago," continued Mr. Fraser, "and.you are,still liable for it. This is the-first time tho board lias tried to collect it." The meeting passed the protesting motion, and further resolved: "That the Harbour Board be urged to make every endeavour.to convert the loan of £100,000 at 7 per cent, into one at a lower rate of'interest." The meeting closed with a vote of thanks to Mr. Fraser and nothing more was said about the gallows'. , •