THE GOVERNMENT WAY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 54, Issue 3895, 28 April 1937, Page 7

THE GOVERNMENT WAY

“A COLD-BLOODED STEAL.” DENYING THE .PAYER A SAY. At Monday’s meeting of the Te Awamutu Borough Council proposals for alterations in the law relating to motor drivers’ licenses and traffic enforcement were submitted by the Commissioner of Transport. Cr Jourdain said it all amounted to a cold-blooded steal!

The Mayor remarked that it was but a part of the Government's policy of taking “bit. by bit.” It was timely for the Council to protest against motor taxation being paid into the Consolidated Fund. Moreover, if the public suffered as much inconvenience in getting drivers’ licenses as was endured when car plates were dealt with it would be ? sorry look out. In answer to an inquiry it was stated that last year’s revenue from these licences was £135. It. seemed this money was to be appropriated and used elsewhere.

It was decided to protest against the trend of centralisation which is unjust in principle and unequal in operation. The Government is grad ually defeating the whole course of Iccal administration, and its plan seemed to be the taking over of the whole function of local bodies. The Mayor was asked to make the Council’s protest as emphatic and definite as possible. Advice was also received of a suggestion that delegated voting should not be exercisable in future. In effect corporate bodies such as companies and societies could not nominate a person who voted as a qualified voter on his own account.

The Mayor thought this a relic of the Christchurch Tramway Board’s election, when large interests became heavily rated on the vote of/? ( people who had no rating responsibility. It would, if made effective, ■j&lsfy nchise many companies, trustees an. other large ratepayers, and from tin 7 angle it was wrong. Probably the hly alternative would be that a pe> ;on not on the electors’ list in his own right would be eligible to exercise a nominated vote. But the absurdity was that oilier voters with no rating responsibility could claim a vote merely on a residential qualification, and it Was an anomalous position in the extreme that votes could be so easily secured cn the one hand while large rating responsibilities could be so easily swept aside on the other hand. To Cr Montefiore it was said the manager of the Bank of New Zealand, as an example, could not vote on his own account as an elector, and as an authorised delegate of the bank as a ratepayer.

Tlie discussion closed with the opinion that tlie legislative idea was that, those who paid should have no say.