Patea & Waverley Press FRIDAY, MAY 9, 1941 A VALUABLE ASSET

Patea Mail, 9 May 1941, Page 2

Patea & Waverley Press FRIDAY, MAY 9, 1941 A VALUABLE ASSET

THE extract published in our last issue Ironi the animal report of the Town Clerk of Foxton should furnish the ratepayers of Fatea with food for much thought. Tire report showed that the council last year was able to transfer from the Town Hall ac-

count no less a sum than £2618 to the General Account and thus relieve the ratepayers of this amount of rates. This year the Town Hall account has shown a profit of £1607, and of this £IOOO has been transferred to General Account . Foxton is a town of 1580 people as against Fatea’s 1500. In addition it is only ten miles from Levin, where there is keen competition in the picture business, and only twenty miles from Palmerston North, where there are also excellent picture theatres. Ratepayers in Fa tea are agreed that the town is heavily rated for its size, due largely to bad mistakes on the part of previous councils. But for precisely the same reason the town for some years past could have been on an even better footing than the borough of Foxton by reason of the valuable asset it possesses in the local Town Hall which, be it noted, was erected for the benefit of the ratepayers, who realised that the old building known as the Druids Hall dul not suffice to meet their requirements. Unfortunately flip council showed pictures in the hall at a time when there was competition, and no such thing as an exhibitor’s license to show picture, giving the holder a monopoly of

t!u- picture business in the town. r l lie council not liking the compeliiiun, decided to invite tenders Tor the hall for a period of seven years. This was in May, 192(1, exactly 15 years ago. Four tenders were received, one of £54(1 per annum, another of £504, one of £420 and the remaining one £3(15. The council in its “wisdom” asked the last tenderer, who was a local resident, to increase his tender to £4(18, and on his agreeing, let the hall to him for that amount. Two years later he sold his interest to the Patea Picture Company—a company of two, and they after showing pictures for a year and obtaining revenue from showing nie.lures and letting the hall for local and other functions, wrote to the council stating that they

vi'civ losing money as people were going to llawera where “talkies” had just been installed. The council, instead of informing the company that if they could not make a success of their business they had better surrender their lease, actually installed two new projection machines for their benefit, and draped the Avails of the hall at the ratepayers’ expense, and gave them a tunv lease with the right oL‘ rcncAval for a furl her seven years Avithout increasing the rent by a penny piece, in fact they actually reduced the rent the folloAving year by £1 a Aveek for 12 months and released the company from the clause in the lease requiring them to employ firemen Avhcn the hall Avas used. This Avas in 1931, ten years ago, and three years later the rent was reduced by the National Expenditure Adjustment Act to £374/8/0. When the time came for the right of rencAval to be exercised or rejected the company claimed the right jpf rcncAval and although the National Expenditure Adjustment Act did not then apply to ucav leases and although the population of the toAvn had increased by 50 per cent since the hall had last been put up for public tender Avhcn I.avo tenders of over £SOO per annum had been received, and Avhat Avas far more important from a money making point of view for the company, there Avas hoav in existence an exhibitor’s license giving the holder an absolute monopoly of the picture business in the toAvn, there Avas inserted in the new lease for seven years a clause giving the company the benefit of the 20 per cent, reduction they had enjoyed under the National Expenditure Adjustment Act, Avhich meant that over £6OO Avent into the pockets of the company instead of relieving the ratepayers of this amount of rates. The seven years lease expired in August of last year. In June, 1938, the Council, feeling that the company had had a sufficiently long use of the hall at the 1 oav rental applied for the license to exhibit pictures to be given to the council on the expiry of the lease so that the council could either avail itself of the monopoly and slioav pictures as is done in Eoxton to the relief of the ratepayers, or put the hall up for lease; to the highest bidder with the exhibitor’s license, but without success, the reply being given by the Department that the existing holder of the license had certain “lights” Avhich- must be given consideration before the exhibitor’s license is transferred or issued to any other applicant . We leave our readers to say Avhat “rights” any lessee of the hall could have against those of the ratepayers, the OAvners of the hall, after they, the lessees had had such exceedingly generous treatment at the hands of the council. We believe that the rights of the 1500 ratepayers in the toAvn and country should be considered before the so-called “rights” of two. The present Government, if it stands for anything at all, stands for the pro‘action of the rights of the people and avc cannot believe but that when the facts are brought before the notice of the Prime Minister, he avIH see that the rights of the ratepayers of Patca are protected. Patca then may bo in the happy position that Eoxton is in and the ratepayers 1)0 relieved of a considerable portion of their rates. A point that cannot be too strongly emphasised is that if the Council, tAvelve years ago, instead of spending money on installing a talking plant for the benefit of the company, had accepted a surrender of the lease and either put the lease up to the highest bidder oi' shoAvn pictures themselves as in Eoxton, they Avould have had many thousands to spend on the improA'-oment of the streets of the Onvn or in the reduction of the rates. We Avonder how many i, atepnyer,s realise this fact.