ADJUSTMENT OF TOWN RATE ACCOUNT.

Marlborough Express, Volume V, Issue 244, 13 August 1870, Page 4

ADJUSTMENT OF TOWN RATE ACCOUNT.

To the Editor of the Marlboroiigh Express. Sir, —In noticing Mr James T. Robinson’s letter in your last issue, allow me to direct attention, first, to the different heading which Mr Robinson puts to his letter to what I did to mine. He heads his letter, “Refund of Borough Rates,” whereas the heading which I write under is “ Adjustment of Town Rate Account.” I care not whether the rates which have been paid in excess be refunded—that is, in the sense of being paid back—or not; all I care about is that the account bo adjusted, so that we all pay, and not to have the matter left as at present, whereby one-fourth of the ratepayers have paid a year’s rates that the other three-fourths have not paid. Mr Robinson, in replying to my letters, ought in all fairness to have written under the same heading as I did ; perhaps, then he would have favored us with some reply to my last paragraph, wherein I say that, “If Mr Robinson will not give those of us who have paid the year in excess our rates back, let him and his friends at least pay up their rate for that»year, and we will be satisfied.” But Mr Roßinson takes no notice of this. lam afraid it looks very like as if he was quite content to take the benefit of other people’s money, but does'riot want to pay his own—a very bad principle, to which he can fit the word “dishonesty ” if he chooses. I will not follow Mr Robinson through his letter this time, with his “columns,” “generals,” “bayonets,” “broadsides,” “victories,” “retreats,” &c. I have not time to write rubbish ; and I suppose, if Mr Robinson had had any good reasons to give to my arguments, he would not have filled his letter with trash. I leave my previous letter and Mr Robinson’s last to my fellow-townsmen, and if they warit an answer to Mr Robinson’s last, I respectfully refer them to my previous letter, which remains unanswered as regards the question of the adjustment of the town rate account, and that is what I am writing for. My positions made good are : That a fourth of the ratepayers have paid one year’s rates that the other three-fourths have not paid; that justice requires that this should be rectified ; and that the persons who paid are the persons who got the town out of debt, as far as their money went. Some people’s arguments are very funny ; they seem to walk on their heads. Mr Robinson, for instance, when he argues that the people who paid put the town into debt; while, at the same time, he has not attempted a shadow of a proof that they did anything else with the rates they paid than paying town debts previously contracted. I am surprised at the position in which the Borough Council, up to the present time, has let thipmatter rest. It is quite un-English—-not jKgfre it a harder ' name—to leave such a injustice standing in the community over which they preside. I can only say that the old Board of Works always displayed a higher principle than is shown so far by the Borough' Council. Imagine' such a state of things in any of the towns of our fatherland ; it neither would, nor could be. I think shame for our Borough Council, that it should be necessary to urge this matter in the manner I feel compelled to do.—l am, &c., .. Geo. Henderson.