Mangonui Hospital Rate: Council’s Stand

Northern Advocate, 3 October 1944, Page 5

Mangonui Hospital Rate: Council’s Stand

(Special) KAITAIA, This Day “The step was taken by this council with the full knowledge of the consequences of the act, but also with the feeling that there was no other course to pursue,” stated a letter forwarded from the Mangonui County Council to the Minister for Health (Hon. A. H. Nordmeyer) by the clerk (Mrs E. A. Nilsson) when advising the council’s decision to adhere to its former i-eso-iution not to strike a hospital rate for 1944-45. The letter was in reply to the Minister’s request, received at the last council meeting, that the council should reconsider its decision. “The ratepayers of this county have made it clear that the councillors were elected to carry out the wishes of the ratepayers and have given a strong and practically unanimous direction that the hospital rate is unjust and should not be struck,” the letter coil tinued. “It was pointed out that should the council be unprepared to carry out this wish, the resignation of its members was the only alternative, so the councillors decided to accept the responsibility at the direction of the ratepayers. “It was further pointed out that should the council persist in including the hospital levy in the 1944-45 estimates. the ratepayers pledged themselves to refuse to pay any rates, but were the levy excluded the general rate would be paid to enable the council to continue its normal activities. “The ratepayers’ action was taken as an emphatic protest against hospital rating as double taxation, the farming community having paid once under the Social Security scheme, and though hospital rating might be legally right it was undoubtedly morally wrong. As Government speakers have of late so continuously stressed the fact that the Government always would consider morality before legality, it was felt that it was time for the farming community to adopt the same policy. “It was further felt that though the ratepayers were forcing the council to take unconstitutional steps, history had proved that all unjust forms of Government had been abolished by similar methods, and that this step had been adopted by the ratepayers only after every other avenue had been explored and pi'oved of: no avail.” The letter called to mind the many conferences which had taken place, and the many representations placed before the Government on the question, so evident in Northland by reason of the large native population. Though there had been many vague promises nothing had been done to ease the situation, and there was no evidence of any action being contemplated by the Government. Any lightening of the burden on local burdens could be only- an elastic arrangement to be used at the whim of the then Minister for Health, and would not remove the injustice. Invested In War Loan

“In one riding of this county the individual ratepayers are making a point of investing the saving in hospital. rates in war bonds,” the letter stated. “This goes to prove that the step taken is not a rebellion against the law, but a strong resentment of what is admittedly an injustice imposed on one section of the community. During the war years there is no section which can show more loyalty or patriotism than the farming community, in that elderly men and women, and in many cases young children have placed their shoulders to the wheel in an endeavour to overcome difficulties of labour shortage in producing foodstuffs. “May I therefore urge upon the Government of New Zealand earnestly to consider the lifting of this unfair and unjust impost, as the feeling of resentment against its continuation is becoming Dominion-wide, and is not confined to this county,” the letter concluded.