AUCKLAND DISTRICT COURT

Northern Advocate, 13 July 1925, Page 6

AUCKLAND DISTRICT COURT

COUNTY MAKES CONTRIBUTION".

The chairman of the Whangarei County Council Mr W. Jones, reported to a meeting of that body on Friday that on Wednesday, in Auckland, ho had attended a meeting of the executive of the Auckland Provincial Court for the Dunedin Exhibition. Finance, advertising and assembly committees had been set up to go into various phases of the preparations. Replies concerning contributions had not been received from all local bodies in the province, "while some of them were not participating. The Finance Committee, of which Mr Jones was a member, had decided to ask the local bodies to contribute one third of their allocations meanwhile, the balance to be paid in when required, and he therefore asked the Council to record a resolution authorising such payment. The sum of £200 had been placed on the estimates for the year to provide a subsidy towards the Provincial Court fund. Although the amount to be contributed had not been definitely fixed he thought that sum was a fair share. Should £200 be voted in a lump sum it would become the full contribution, b.ut he did not recommend that course being adopted. Cr. R. R. Hodge then moved, seconded by Cr. Stephen, that £50 be contributed meanwhile.

If that amount were to constitute the full contribution from the County Council, said Cr. P. McKenna, he would not object, but he was opposed to allocating £200 towards the object. The ratepayers had not sent them to the Council to vote money .for an exhibition in Dunedin. If such exhibitions were necessary he thought that the right body to finance them was the Government. It had been said that contribution through local bodies was the fairest way of getting every one to bear a share. If every one owned his land and had no mortgage upon it that might be a fair basis, but he compared the relative position of the man who had sold his land at a high price, and taken a mortgage upon it, with the struggler left to toil to pay for the farm. They did not pay fair shares through the local bodies contributing. Cr. McKenna concluded that the members of the Council were in office to maintain roads and bridges and not to finance exhibitions. When th§ motion sanctioning payment on account was passed, Cr. McKenna recorded his vote, against it.