WAIKATO DISTRICT NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7302, 14 April 1885, Page 3

WAIKATO DISTRICT NEWS.

|TJ2OM OUB OWN COBRESPONDEKTS.I

Hamilton, Monday. An injustice {a being inflicted upoa local bodies in the manner in which the provisions of the Rating Act are being carried out by the Government with respect to the handing over of thei rates on Crown and nature .lands. Tha Property Tax Commissioner has forwarded a circular to counties notifying those bodieii that the demand for rates due on Crown lands made in July, 1884, for the year ending 31st March last will not be paid, bat that another roll will shortly be supplied upon the basis of which a new demand must be made. Thia new rating roll for Crown and native lands is so much reduced that the loss in rates will be considerable. The Waikato County Council are, it seems, determined not to quietly put np with this change, and in reply to Mr. Sperry's letter, enclosing the new roll, the Clerk h»B been instructed to write:—"ln forwarding to the Council the new roll at the end instead of at the beginning of the financial year, I am deeired to request that you will kindly inform 'the Council upon what legal authority you withhold payment fourteen days after the demand is made, and furnish a new roll not provided for by any statute known to this Council. It is the intention of this Council, in conjunction with, other counties, during the next session of Parliament, to question yonr right to withdraw the original and furnish a substituted roll, whereby counties are deprived of a large sum of money." The proposal of the Borough Council to offer Lot 303, Hamilton East, for 30 years' lease at an upset rental cf 10-! per annum, is looked upon with disfavour by the burgesses as smacking too much of the old system when the reservee were jobbed away to councillors and councillors' friends. This lot, containing an acre of land, is situated at the corner of the leading business street with the Cambridga-road, and cannot be dealt with to the advantage of the borough at the present time. While those having the progress of the town at heart axe anxious to see the domain lands leased on improving terms for merely nominal rents,, they do not care to see valuable town reserves made away with for the benefit of speculators. It is satisfactory to find the High School re-opening to-day, for the coming quarter, with a rite of nearly fifty per cent, in the number of pupils attending. ■ , . Cambridge, Monday. Messrs.'Barngh and Wheeller, and Captain Runciman have been chosen by lot to retire from the Tamahere Highway Board this year. Now that the days are drawing in, people are beginning to feel the inconvenience of the present railway time table, as it will soon be dark when the Auckland train arrives here. The convenience of so late a departure from Auckland as half-past eleven a.m., is so fully appreciated that it has been suggested as the most practical solution of the difficulty, that the goods train, which stops short daily at Hamilton, returning from thence at two p.m. to Auckland the same day, should be sent on to Cambridge, returning from here immediately after arrival, say a quarter to three p.m. Wβ should thus have the advantage of receiving our goods and mails by daylight same day as sent from Auckland, should have a second daily train to and from Auckland, and those who lived far away from the town could arrive in Cambridge at a quarter to three p.m., or leave it till dark, as they chose.

■ It was hoped that the amalgamation of two so-called society papers under an able and carefully conducted irapervision would have been an improvement. The people of Cambridge, bowever, hsive been greatly scandalised by the publication of a most offensive paragraph in Saturday's isiue of the new print. Cambridge unfortunately possesses the unenviable distinction of being tho only township in Waikato which maintains a house of ill fame, and under the thin veil of an " Omnibus Company, " the institution in question is made the subject of a humourous skit abounding in double entendre, and of a most objectionable character. The paragraph outsteps all bounds of common decency, and mixes up the initials of well known townsmen with this disreputable institution. This much of good, however, it is to be hoped, will be the result of this effort of Johnsonian wit, that tho police will take the matter in hand and break up the nest of painted Jeaebels whioh has so long disgraced the township. Te Awamuiu, Monday. Farmers are impatiently asking whether the auctioneers really mean to introduce the system of sale of cattle by live weight, and a lively remonstrance is likely soon to be made upon the subject. The farmer not only feels the continuous low prices, but is farther handicapped by the uncertainty attending his operations, whether as buyer or seller. Hβ not unfruqnently buys stores at £5, and after a couple or three months consumption of turnips and grass, re-sells them aa beef for the aarno amount; or, perhaps, £4 10s per head. This state of things would be muoh mitigated by buying and selling by actual weight, as dime in America. Under each a system, the farmer would be better able to calculate his chances than at present. He would know. that it was useless to buy etores at 2d per lb. when he could only get IJd or 2d per lb. for them as.beef. At present he works in the dark. ' He has no means of getting tit tho weight of the store beasts he purchases, and unless- experienced beyond the usual run of settlers, is too often only correct; in believing that the butcher gets more weight of fat beef for his money than he oughi; to do, Selling by live live weight would not increase the prioe of beef by a fraction of a penny per lb., but it would at least ensure to the farmer the certainty of getting paid for the full weight of his beast. The farmer is right in insistin <? upon the only ranthod of sale which will ensure this. The frozen meat trade has not done for Waikato what was expected from it, and therefore there is all the more reason that every possible means of benefiting the grazing interest should be attended to. Waikato has shown its capabilities for the growth of grain and dairy produce, but the raising of bsef i* its great stand-by after all, without whioh, indeed, its consequent improvement of the soil by the growth and feeding of turnips, neither grain production nor dairy farming would have been so profitable as they have be<?n.