THE Poverty Bay Independent. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Thursday, November 12, 1885.

Poverty Bay Independent, Volume I, Issue 73, 12 November 1885, Page 2

THE Poverty Bay Independent. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Thursday, November 12, 1885.

The Counties Act Amendment Act. 1885, which came into force on the first of the current month has at length been circulated. The first idea which intrudes itself upon our attention is astonishment at the unusually hasty manner in which this peculiar piece of legislation has been imposed upon the country. Few people, including the local bodies who are mainly affected thereby, have had ’he opportunity of perusing the provisions of the Act until long after some of its most prominent clauses have been in operation. Indeed with respect to the second and third sections, when taken in conjunction with the local agitation for obtaining a division of the county, it would require no great stretch of imagination to lead to the supposition that they had been framed for our especial benefit, and hurriedly brought into force for the purpose of putting a period to that movement. The clause referred reads :—“ From and after the passing of this Act no new count}’ shall be constituted except under a special Act of the Assembly,” In dealing with “ The allocation of County Fund” the Act says: The Council shall, in each year, apportion the gross income of the county from all sources in the manner following ; that is to say.—(t) In payment, in the first instance oft e general debts and liabilities of the county, as a whole; (2) In payment of contributions to be made out of the County Fund by virtue of any act of the General I ssembly; (3) In payment of the cost of constructing and maintaining all main roads and County -oads within the Connty, and of bridges on such roads respectively and of ferries ; constructing and maintaining bridges exceeding thirty feet span on district oads. The remainder of the annual income is to be apportioned among the ridings in the County in proportion to the annual amount of general rates received from them. Surely the word “ remainder ” must have been inserted in a most satirical spirit, or as a severe reflection upon the constant struggle which is ever taking place between the members of County Councils for the purpose of “ constructing, maintaining, or repairing” roads through the different ridings which they represent, but for which sufficient funds are never available. With us it is not a question as to what ve shall do with the “ remainder ” after the necessarygeneral work as been provided for, but how we can obtain sufficient funds to make and maintain our roads, and how to fairly apportion the work according

to the requirements of each riding. As far as tending to afford any remedy whatever to the present complaints that the County funds are most unequally and unjustly apportioned to favored ridings, the Amendment Act, 1885, might as well have been a dead blank.