RATEPAYERS' GRIEVANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9032, 19 April 1888, Page 3

RATEPAYERS' GRIEVANCE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—The ordinary taxpayers of the city get but scant mercy when in arrears with their general rates. This year the Council have been exceptionally severe, and have summoned without meroy all and sundry ; at least it is supposed —my knowledge does not extend beyond the poor and struggling. If they have made exceptions in the upper circles it will be a great injustice. The taxes of this city, if you take into consideration our endowments, appear to be exceptionally heavy. The proposal to reduce the rents of the lessees of the city seems to my mind outside the present powers of the Council, and against reason. Why, sir, these men now crying for mercy were the cause of our sudden inflation from the grub to the butterfly. A few years ago, any person doubting the sound judgment of these very men would have been deemed insane. Mason Brothers, Garratt, Buchanan, Harper, J. B. Russell, and others, who bought at auction them selves or through agents, were at that time considered the salt of the earth as successful business men. But how has their rash business venture affected the ordinary business man, who, level-headed, could not see with their eyes? The city valuer, taking these auction sales on which to base his valuations, produced a valuation that emboldened the Council to borrow, dig down, buy land, and build out of all proportion to the present requirements of this precious infant colony, housing themselves in a palace, increasing their staff into what hundreds consider unnecessary proportions, and by their municipal demands driving residents into the distant suburbs, leaving unfortunate owners of over a thousand tenements to bear the brunt of the burden of the city taxation, themselves reaping all the benefits, while in the city for business or pleasure, of all the luxuries created by the city, and for which they voted, and now they smile at us unfortunates, and say, "Luckily I am not a city ratepayer." Also, the valuers for the property tax, through this sudden inflation no doubt, were guided in their judgment by the city valuations, and by them no doubt we are still further burdened. There is no reasonable excuse for the City Council to strain the present law in the leaseholders' favour, and the public will watch with open eyes, what many think, who know the prominent part the first applicant takes in elections, the end of the wedge for general reductions in the rents of the city endowments to persons who are not deserving of sympathy.— am, &c., Duke Humphrey.