MEETING OF RATEPAYERS AT KAIPARA FLATS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7402, 10 August 1885, Page 6

MEETING OF RATEPAYERS AT KAIPARA FLATS.

In accordance with a motion passed at a public meeting held at this place on the 28th July, I send you the following resolutions passed by that meeting, and hope that you may fiud space for them in your widelycirculated paper, so that the attention of landholders throughout the country may be drawn to the matter. The resolutions were as follow : — Proposed by Mr. Trethowen, seconded by Mr. Hood, and carried unanimously, That it is the opinion of this meeting, that if the recommendations regarding alterations in the compensation sections of the Public Works Act, sent to the Government by the Rodney County Council, were adopted and passed into law, very serious injustice would be done to landholders whose property a County Council or Road Board would take a road through." Proposed by Mr. W. Taylor, seconded by Mr. W. Angove, and carried unanimously, " That it is the opinion of this meeting that the compensation sections of the Public Works Act should not be altered, unless the ratepayers throughout the country should express their decided opinion that a change ie necessary." Proposed by Mr. Sainsbury, seconded by Mr. Williams, and carried unanimously, "That in view of the recent action of the Rodney County Council, as mentioned in the first resolution, it is the opinion of this meeting that any local public body should not send the private views of its members as recommendations or requests to the Government; nor use its inuuenoe as a public body in any way for the alteration of any law affecting the interests of the ratepayers without first bringing the matter prominently before the ratepayers, giving them time to consider it, and getting the vote of the majority in favour of it." The following copy of a letter sent with the above resolutions to our representative in the General Assembly by the committee appointed for that object will, I think, explain the aotion of the settlers in this matter:—" Kaipara Flats, July 30, 1885. Mr. W. P. Moat, M.H.R., Wellington.— Dear Sir, —In the following resolutions, passed at a large and influential publio meeting of the settlers of this and from the Mahurangi distriot, held here on the 28th instant, we have expressed the opinions which we have formed, after carefully considering the published report, of the request which the Rodney County Counoil has sent to the Government for alterations in the compensation sections of the Publio Works Act. It would be difficult to describe in words the various forms in* Which the proposals of the Rodney County Council would injuriously affect the landholders of the country if they were adopted aud put into force ; but we would like to show, in the following remarks, something of the way in which it would most affect those who have settled on the land. The Rodney County Council first requests the Government 'so to alter the compensation sections in the Public Works Act that the property assessment by the Government, with 50 per cent, added, be the value of the land in tne Compensation Court.' Now,while the section of the law relating to the Govern* ment assessment applies to the whole of the land, when used by the Council it would be applied only to the particular part taken for a road. In a great number of the farms in the North the amount of level land is small compared with the whole area, and it is on these small portions that the settler expends the greater part of his labour and capital— many expend a great part of the strength of a lifetime on themand, in many instances, it is these parts that give value to the whole ; yet, if the law was altered as recommended by the Rodney County Council; these parts of the farm may be crossed by a road, no matter how valuable they may be, and without regard to the laying out of the land ; and the only compensation that would bo awarded would ba 50 per cent, per acre more than the value of any other part of it. But the Rodney County Council also request, ' That in taking a road through unimproved land when the owner is resident, the award of the Court for fencing shall be for one fence only.' No matter whether the road -winds about, or goes diagonally through a farm, or whether it would not be in conformity with improvements already made, nor even whether the owner would bo able to put up the fencing along one side of the road, if the law was altered as recommended, he would be compelled to put up the fence or abandon part of his farm. Now, it must be remembered that even when compensation is paid to the owner for the first cost of fencing both sides of a new road, which has been taken through his property, the keeping-up of fencing on both sides of that road is a tax fixed uponjjthat property for ever ; and wo may say that every 100 chains of fencing to be kept up is equal to a perpetual rent of £5 per year. We think that no fixed rule can be applied with justice in all cases ; as in many instances they might be influenced by party spirit,, and not by a sense of justice." The concluding paragraph of the above letter asks Mr. Moat to take aotion in the matter. I may express the hope that any attempt to encroach on the rights of individual settlers, who have enough to oontend with already, will be met with prompt resistance from everyone who has the prosperity of the country at heart.[A Correspondent, July 31.1