MASTERTON NEWS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 897, 10 May 1889, Page 1

MASTERTON NEWS.

(from our own correspondent.) May 6. The question as to what basis should be taken for collecting special rates under the Ro u!s and Bridges Construction Act and ihe Local Bodies Loans Act, which has been agitating numbers of local bodies of (Me, lias been submitted by the Mas! er ion Road Board to its solicitor, who has given a written opinion to the effect that the rate must i>o- collected each year upon the valuation - in form for the time being, and. not upon the value of the property interested at the time the loan was made. Land bodies in the Wairarapa have hitherto adhered to the latter plan, which is certainly much the simplest as well as the fairest. The opinion should prove useful to ail local bodies who have borrowed money. The Whareatna Road Board lias a way of its own of doing business. There has been exceedingly bad blood between some of the members for some time past, and those members who formerly took no special interest in matters that really arose out of neighbourly differences, were gradually drawn into it. Last Saturday four members of the Board attended at the place where the meeting for the election of a chairman was to be held. The fifth did not turn up. The party that was “in” for the past year was ready to proceed to business, but the “ outs ” would not listen to this, and, as there were two on each side, tho mooting foil through. At tho meeting of the Masterton Road Board on Saturday Mr W. H. Beetham was unanimously re elected chairman for the ensuing year. The police have managed to drop on three residents in the town whom they allege have been poaching trout in the Waipoua river with explosives, and the case is to be hoard toward the end of the week.