CARTERTON.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1201, 8 March 1895, Page 18

CARTERTON.

There has been quite an “ epidemic ” of buggy accidents through horses bolting of late. On Monday a horse and trap left in front of a store for a couple of minutes was seen vanishihg in the distance by the owner when he came out. ' The horse had been startled and bolted down the street, and did not pull up until it smashed into a cart and the wheel got locked in the debris. A boy in the second cart jumped clear only just in time to escape the danger. Last week three or four accidents occurred through horses being loft unattended. It has been a common saying that the horses get “ too much oats,” and that makes them lively. It appears to me to be the bot fly that causes horses usually quiet to bolt. The bot fly has been a great source of annoyance this year. There are many varieties of them about, and one sort attacks cattle, boring holes in their skin and depositing eggs. When the hides come to be sold they are found to be damaged from this cause and much depreciated in value.

The financial year with all public bodies ends with this month. The Carterton Road Board is about LI6OO in debt, and will be more by the end of the month, and the Featherston Board is Ll70o! These two districts comprise the Wairarapa South County Council. Now the Act provides that road boards may anticipate their coming rates by boirowing from the banks up to the amount of the rates collected for the current year. But surely the framers of that Act never anticipated such a state of things as now exists—that is to start the new financial year with the whole of their coming rates already expended. This chronic overdraft is a costly affair to the ratepayers, for in the past they have had to pay at the rate of nine < and ten per cent, per annum, although lately it was reduced to eight per cent., and from the Ist of February to seven per cent. At the lowest it means LIOO a year. There is a way out of it, and that is by limiting the expenditure. Let the clerks supply each warden with the maximum sum that will be at his disposal for the year, after setting aside a certain amount for reduction of the standing debt and providing for contingencies, and give them positively to understand that no expenditure in excess of that amount will be permitted. The boards have struck the maximum rate and cannot look in that direction for relief. The fault of the present unsatisfactory state of the finances of local bodies is dv»e to tb? fact of all

governments in the paso selling the lands to the settlers and retaining the whole of the purchase money, instead of reserving a portion of it for forming and making roads. It would only be an act of justice for the Government to vote a sum of money sufficient to open up the X back country where the land was sold in the early days.