LOCAL RATES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22028, 7 February 1935, Page 14

LOCAL RATES

Sir, —In regard to the collection of rates. Mr. F. 5. Battlqy, chairman of the Finance Committee of the Mount Eden Borough Council, said: "The position was excellent from the viewpoint both of the ratepayers and the council." As money is cheai«ened and prices of goods and services rise it .becomes easier for ratepayers to discharge fixed financial obligations. Yet the position is far from "excellent." So dissatisfied were Mount Eden ratepayers with the exorbitant demands made upon them that at the election before last they turned out the Mayor and most of the councillors and put into office men who promised to ease their burdens. But these promises have not been kept to any marked extent. On the contrary, rates have been maintained, while rents and property market values have fallen. Local bodies all over this Dominion and in other lands have imposed unjust and crushing burdens upon ratepayers and are now co-operating with mortgagees to dispossess owners of their properties. This is cruel and wicked oppression, which should be denounced from every pulpit in the land. Mr. Kenneth H. Melvin is right and "Matanga" and Archdeacqn Mac Murray are wrong in their expressed views of the Churches' responsibility to such matters. And the London Times disparagement of "topical preaching" in favour of preaching the "Gos|>el" is ridiculous. Every genuine preacher of righteousness must denounce the flagrant economic evils of his day. Are wo to hold our tongues and pens while farmers, householders and business people, through no fault of their own, are crushed under the car of God-defy-ing Mammonism? If money had been cheapened sooner, as I have urged for the past 10 years, the disastrous slump would have ended earlier. Now we must help the Minister of Finance and the Government to the utmost of our ability to salvage as much as possible from the economic wreckage. J. G. Hughes.