TAXING AN ISLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16030, 23 September 1915, Page 5

TAXING AN ISLAND.

APPEAL BY THE OWNER.

QUESTION OF BOUNDARIES.

An appeal against a decision of Mr. E. Page, S.M., at Kawakawa, came before Mr. Justice Hosking yesterday. The parties were Henry Hopper Adams, of Takapuna, settler, now appellant (Mr. J. B. Johnston), and the chairman, councillors and inhabitants of the County of the Bay of Islands, now respondent (Mr. E. J. Prendergast). In the original action, plaintiff, the Bay of Islands County Council, sought to recover from defendant, Adams, the sum 01 £19 10s 7d, being the amount of a rate of in. the £ on the ratable value of Moturoa Island, which belonged to him. The island, which is situated in the Bay of Islands, near the mouths of the Kerikeri and Maugonui Rivers, is 365 acres in area. Appellant and his predecessors had paid rates for over 30 years, and some public money had been spent by the council in forming a track on a promontory on the mainland, for the benefit of the island. The definition of the county boundary reads :—" Towards the north by the southern boundaries of the Kaeo and Whangaroa Highway Districts to the mouth of the Takou River; towards the east by the ocean to Helena Bay." At the hearing, defendant contended that he was entitled to judgment upon the grounds that the words, " the ocean" meant, and were intended by the Legislature to mean, the great body of salt-water, and that, therefore, the boundaries of the county did not include the island, and that the council consequently had no power to levy rates thereon. It was argued for the council that the words meant, and .were intended to mean, "the open sea," that portion of the great body of salt-water which lay outside arms of the sea such as harbours, bays, golfs, etc., that the waters of the Bay of Islands within which Moturoa Island was situated were not portion of " the ocean" in the meaning in which the words were used in the description, and that the island was within the county and ratable. In his judgment, the magistrate said :— " Assuming that the word ' ocean' where used in the Counties Act meant the open sea. as distinct from an enclosed, or partially enclosed, sea or water, are the islands that lie within the Bay of Islands to be considered as lying in the ocean, and so outside the limits of the county? Ido not think they are. Defendant's island lies well within the harbour, in the estuary of the Kerikeri River and the Mangonui River, two arms of the harbour, and at a distance of a quarter-of-a-mile from the shore. I tliink, therefore, that the island lies within the boundaries of the county and is liable to be rated." Judgment was given for the council for £7 14s 7d, the rater, for the year ended March 31, 1914, with 10 per cent, penalty and costs.

The appeal was on the ground that the derision -was wrong in law. Decision was reserved.