LAKE ROAD BOARD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9086, 21 June 1888, Page 3

LAKE ROAD BOARD.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sik, —It is stagnant waters which corrupt themselves, not those on which the breath and the winds of heaven are freely blowing. I therefore am pleased to see Mr. Harrow come out boldly and raise a howl against the mismanagement of this road board. There is no doubt but that the affairs of the parish are mismanaged when the rates are paid to two different bodies. Surely one local body is sufficient to assess and worry the parish. It is monstrous to think that the Road Board rate, amounting in all to some £120, should cost £30 to collect, and if it can be collected by the County Council free of charge, surely the ratepayers on Friday evening will demand it be so. During the years of our borrowed millions we had of course to create an army of civil servants so as to consume the borrowed money, but now that it has ceased the difficulty presently before the people is how to get rid of the microbes who grew in thousands on the sweets of office. The Financial Reform Association lays bare an ugly fact when it tells us 'that in New Zealand in 1860, when our population was 150,000, the cost of government was only £108,000 ; now the population is 600,000 and its cost of government is £2,100,000. In other words, while the population has increased four times, the expenditure has increased nearly twenty times, notwithstanding labour, money, and the cost of living have steadily fallen. Surely the people are mad. We want a Harrow in every parish to slay the hordes of bloodsuckers.l am, etc., A Ratepayer.