DEFERRED PAYMENT MONEY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume X, Issue 1836, 24 January 1888, Page 2

DEFERRED PAYMENT MONEY.

To the Editor of the Star. Sir, — As an earnest advocate for the simplification of the dual system of road management which now obtains in Hawera County, I propose to draw attention to one or two of tbe evils which have already arisen through the change of system of road control recently introduced. The change I refer to was the establishment, by the new Counties Act of 1886, of two working bodies having working control over roads. Prior to that, and ever since tbe County of Hawera was constituted in 1881, the only working body was the road board. Each of the road boards ascertained what money was required for county or main roads, its estimates were checked by the county council, and if the demands seemed reasonable the sums were voted to and spent by the road board. Thus within each road district there was only one working authority on whom all the responsibility for the formation, care, and maintenance of roads rested. Now that is changed. We have in Waimate riding both road board and county controlling roads. Already some friction has arisen ; there is a difficulty in defining their respective rights and powers, and up to the present, after fairly full inquiry, I have not met a single ratepayer who considers two road-governing bodies within one moderate-sized riding of a county either necessary or economical. One or other will shortly be abolished, of that I feel sure. My own opinion is that Bince ridings were declared by law to be separate financial bodies, with separate and distinct rating powers, the necessity for road boards has been done away with. After many years of interesting work as a road board chairman both in this district and elsewhere, this conclusion was forced upon me against my sympathies and prejudices. But although I have satisfied myself on this point, I desire to differ only amicably from those who hold that the county should give way to the Road Board. The contention I now desire to urge is simply that the present dual system is working badly, has acted unfairly, and must act unfairly on many ratepayers, because of tbe forced separation of tbe county roads, the main channels of communication, from their feeders, the by-roads. I find that in the deferred payment schedule of proposed expenditure of deferred payment money recently framed by the Waimate Road Board approved of by the Land Board, and praised by the Crown Landß Banger, that the expenditure of some £70 of deferred payment

money derived from Sutherland Road, Block VII., Waimate, is allocated for expenditure as follows:— Palmer* Road* Block XV* Kaupokonni, £4 12s 2d; Sutton, town, £1 18s sd; Neill, Block XV., Kaupokonui, £12; Skeet Road, Blocks XIV. and XV., Kaupokonui, £45'; Kearin Road, Block VII., Waimate, £1 5s lid; Hicks Road, Block 111., Waimate, £6 lls 9d. I bold this expenditure to be for the most part illegal. Tbe selectors on Sutherland Road will not be benefitted by such expenditure on Kearin Road or on Skeet Road. Those roads will not "open up the block ior tbe benefit of the selectors," and should not bave been authorised. If not wanted on Sutherland Road, those monies should bave been spent on some county road — for instance, on the Main South Road, which is daily used by those selectors, say on the new Waiokura concrete culvert, on the new macadamising near the Waingongoro, or on further gravelling on the Manaia Road. The latter road, badly as it needs expenditure near Kaponga is also to be robbed of its deferred payment money, if I understand the schedule aright ; for £18 14s lOd derived from Manaia road, block VII, is to be spent on Melville road, block XI, Kaupokonui. Then out of £16 4s 6d of deferred payment money from Kaepe street Manaia £4 17s 8d is to be spent in block VI, Waimate, on Normanby beach road, £4 16s lOd on Kearin road ; in neither of which roads can the deferred payment selectors on Kaepe street apparently have much, it any, beneficial interest. Out of £24 16s 3d derived from Mitchell road £10 is to be Bpent on Normanby beach road, and £2 4s 2d on Winks' road ; whereas any local authority having control over both district and county roads would recognise that selectors on Mitchell road, which is purely a short feeder of the Main South road, would be benefited by expenditure on the latter or on the Man&ia-Eltbam or Manaia-Nor-manby roads but they are county roads and so some other outlet must be sought by the road board for tbe money. If the selectors concerned are satisfied with this appropriation of their deferred payment money, its questionable legality might be passed over. But as ratepayers on Waimate riding are likely soon to be very heavily rated for a reconstruction of worn out part 8 of the Main South road and its bridges, towards the wearing out of which road traffic from Sutherland road, from Kearin road, and from Mitchell road must necessarily contribute, and towards tbe cost of which re-metalling and rebuilding those same selectors as ratepayers will have heavily to contribute out of pocket, I feel sure they would prefer to let their deferred payment money be expended so as to reduce tbeir county road rates. This is at present refused by tbe Road Board. Councillor Heslop, at tbe last council meeting, instanced one selector on a district road who desired tbat his deferred payment money should be spent on the Eltbam road, which was his outlet. But tbe Road Board refused to do so, because the latter was a county road, over which they had no jurisdiction. In Ward 11. I notice that money which accrued from Dingle road, which is really a continuation of the Auroa road through Otakebo towards the beach, was allocated to Taikaitu road. Auroa road is in debt some £88. Had the county and district roads been under tbe control of any one roadcontrolling body, I cannot doubt tbat part of the money at tbe credit of Dinglo road would bave been applied to the reduction of the debt on its northern end, where it is a county road and called Auroa road. I have no desire to unduly criticise road board work, having doubtless often blundered myself ; but I wish to expose the weakness of the present dual system, by which bye roads and county roads have been placed in a costly and unnatural antagonism to one another. When the ratepayers, whether deferred payment selectors or holders of cash land once recognise that a unification of road control will result in a reduction of road rates, and in the allocation of deferred payment money to the roads ot more direct benefit to particular selectors, they will soon decide either to merge the road boards in the county council, or to have all county roads declared district roads. — I am, &c, J. C. Yorke. P.S. — I have not yet seen the schedule for Ward iv., in which I am also interested as a selector.