WHEEL TAX.

Opunake Times, Volume III, Issue 141, 8 November 1895, Page 2

WHEEL TAX.

It will be pleasurable news to the settlers that the Council has decided to suspend the wheel tax for twelve months. The Chairman stated that the improve! state of the Council's finances would permit of this being done. When the iax was imposed it was s'.attd it would be only lor one year, so that unless something very extraordinary occurrred it would bo a deliberate breach of faith on the part of the Council to continue it. We were very mucn surprised So find that our representatives, Messrs McGloin and McCullum, were the only members of the Council who voted for its

continuance. We- presume they do not intend standing for re-election, aud consequently were regardless of what hardship they inflicted on the unfortunate ratepayers, whether necessary or not. It will however, we hope, prove a lesson to the ratepayers and make them take a greater interest in selecting representatives in the future, and see that men endowed with a reasonable amount of common sense are returned to the Council. We are not aware that the ratepayers in this part of the County are in a better position to pay such a tax than those in other parts, and therefore when all the other members voicing the wishes of their constituents were prepared to abolish it for the time being we see no grounds whatever for the action of our members.