COUNTY LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXV, Issue 3304, 16 May 1931, Page 5

COUNTY LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —I think it will be readily conceded that the fundamental principle underlying county local government was to provide an organisation whereby reasonable roading facilities at a reasonable cost to the ratepayer would be provided to enable him to make a success of his calling, and the question now presents itself, has that objective been attained in most of the counties functioning throughout the Dominion to-day. Whatever measure of success may have attained the counties’ efforts prior to the advent of the motor, it can be unquestionably pi'oven.. that at least during the past ten years, or since the motor traffic has become practically the only means of transport on bounty roads, notwithstanding the fact that local body taxation has increased to a phenomenal extent all over the Dominion, that in nearly all counties it has failed entirely to provide such reasonable roading facilities to ratepayers—the only objective that has justified the existence of the organisation of local government. If it can be shown that after many years of struggling to meet their ever-increasing burden of rates, obviously supposed to pay for facilities or services that few are receiving in relation to their cost, many have received few or none at all, surely the time has arrived when a thorough investigation should be made into the present system of local government to enable us to diagnose the cause of the failure and apply a suitable remedy. If a close investigation were xxxade, I feel sure the chief cause of that failure would be found in the fact that the present incidence of taxation, namely, direct taxation on land values, by way of rates, under present conditions is no longer a reliable, just, or adequate source of obtaining revenue for the construction and maintenance of county roads. Our County Councils are, I believe, doing their best, but have been set an impossible task in their endeavour to meet the demand for roading facilities, working with machinery that belongs to a past decade. It simply cannot be done, and herein lies the crux of the position. So much for the present, but what of the future? Few of our roads are being adequately maintained through lack of finance, their efforts are becoming less effective year by year as the demands on their already inadequate resources increase. Again, practically all of our roads will have to be constructed in the not far distant future, to meet the demands of modern needs, which are bound to increase, together with hundreds of miles of roads yet to be laid down in various parts of the Dominion to give access to lands, much of which are already beai'ing heavy rates for facilities never ~et received; faced with an anticipated reduced rateable value of our lands due to various causes opei’ating, but difficult to define, a much weakened financial position of most ratepayers all over the Dominion, which is going to be difficult to recover, and upon which the whole fabric of local body government as now constituted depends, a fabric that in most counties has about reached breaking point. Surely this question with its terrible far-reaching effects, eating as it does into the very vitals of our only export industi'y, demands the early and earnest consideration, not only of our Government, but of everyone who has the true welfare of the Dominion at heart, and before thousands of acres of our gi’azing land that to-day is beyond the margin of cultivation, goes definitely out of occupation.—l am, etc., JAS. N. BODDIE.