UNPAID NATIVE RATES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20255, 15 May 1929, Page 14

UNPAID NATIVE RATES.

COUNTY COUNCIL'S PROBLEMS

EXPERIENCE IN FRANKLIN.

SETTLEMENT OF LAND WANTED.

[by telegraph,—special reporter. ] PUKEKOHE, Tuesday.

The difficulties in the way of collecting rates from native lands were explained' to the Hon. G. W. Forbes, Minister of Lands and Agriculture, by a deputation from tho Franklin County Council at Pukekohe this evening. The county clerk, Mr. A. P. Day, said that since the constitution of the county in 1912, the council had been losing as much as £4OO a year in rates on native lands. As an experiment, the council decided to proceed under comparatively new clauses' in the Rating Act with a view to securing, charging and vesting orders, so that the land could be sold. The Minister of Native Affairs had been approached on the matter last February after the consent of the Native Lands Court had been obtained, but no aeply was received until this month, when tho Minister of Internal Affairs, on behalf of Sir Apirana Ngata, notified that tho question had been referred to the Native Land Court officers for a report dealing with the possibility of the rates being paid without the sacrifice of tho land. Therefore, after all the trouble of securing the ordefs prescribed in the Act, tho question was held up by the Minister. Mr. Day said frankly the proceedings were taken with a view to the sale of the lands, and the placing thereon of settlers who would utilise the lands. Mr. Forbes undertook to interview tho Minister of Native Affairs, with a view to ascertaining when the report mentioned would be available.

Mr. J. N. Massey, M.P. for Franklin, strongly urged that the valuable native land now lying idle should be made to produce something. The Minister agreed, particularly that one block of 282 acres granted to landless natives should be utilised in some way. ________________