HOSPITAL RATING

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 71, Issue 6144, 3 October 1945, Page 5

HOSPITAL RATING

MANGONUI COUNTY’S POSITION LETTERS BEFORE TE AWAMUTU FARMER&’hUNTON Some time ago the T.e Awamutu branch of the Farmers’ Union wrote to the Mangonui County Council to ascertain the true position that pertained to certain staff position alleged to. be in the process of being vacated /pwing to the Council’s attitude over the nonpayment of the hospital levies. ’ The reply was before the meeting of the branch on Friday?'flight and read as follows: “I have to advise you that the resignation of the members of the staff has nothing to do with the financial state of the County. “The traffic inspector has held the position during the pas£ two or three years while suffering from very indifferent health, merely as a war-time measure, and the County engineer has already been replaced by a much more highly paid officer. The County has carried on with the usual maintenance works as per usual from revenue, and the Main Highways Board have taken over the Main Highways. The subsidies on the Main Highways had of necessity to be spent before the money could be collected, so now it is Main Highways funds that are being expended instead of County funds. The roads as far as I can gather are much in the same conditions as they have been for years, and if any extra deterioration has taken place it surely can be attributed to the fact that during the war years labour has been expensive and inferior. Trucks were for two years unobtainable and the traffic on the roads excessive.

“The Hospital Levy for 1945-46 amounts to £8347 which is equivalent to almost 7d in the £1 on the unimproved value, and to pay that to the Hospital Board and then receive it back in grants, would not, as you can see, put one yard of metal on the roads. The Council have decided to again make no provision for the Hospital Levy and have struck a rate of did in the £1 in addition to loan rates only. It seems a pity that the Mangonui County has to again stand alone, but I feel that the publicity caused has done the cause more good than can be gauged.” The following letter, sent by the same County Council to the Whakatane County Council, was also read: “I am in receipt of your circular letter together with newspaper cutting, and in reply I have to thank you for the interest your Council are displaying in the hospital rating question. “The Mangonui County has by its lone stand on the matter blazed a trail which the Council very earnestly desire other counties will follow, as the injustice of the Hospital rate—whether large or small—is now universally acknowledged. Tracing the matter through history, we find that John Hampden successfully resisted the unjust imposition of ‘ship money,’ which in its day no doubt caused a serious flutter, but is one which down the passage of time has placed our democratic laws on a sound footing. “There are many ideas as to what form the resistance against hospital rating should take, and to find an idea which 100% of the people will accept as perfect is an impossibility. The .drastic action taken by the Mangonui County did for a time react on the Main Highways, by the cessation of work on these roads x but with one months attention by the Main Highways Board these roads are now quite up to usual standard. “The deterioration of the side roads and bridges within the County has been a seadily increasing factor for many years, and the payment of the large hospital levies during the years which have passed have prevented the Council from carrying out the improvements which have been necessary to keep up with the traffic. The Native and Crown lands which are non-rate producing, make the upkeep of roads a heavy burden on the rate producing portion, and the fact of the Maori forming 45% of the population makes the upkeep of the Hospital an unheard of burden.

“My Council, as a Council, feel that the effect has not been in any way disastrous, but on the other hand feel that their efforts have been crowned with a good deal of success. It is the wish of the Council therefore to entirely disassociate itself from the sentiments expressed in the letter reported, which the Council understands was a privately expressed view of Mr Barriball in reply to an enquiry from the chairman of the Whakatane County, and therefore does not convey the sentiments of the Mangonui County Council. “My Council therefore trusts that when the true position is realised many other Counties will follow Mangonui’s lead and thus induce the powers that be to remove for all time this great injustice from the farming community.” Both letters were handed to the Courier for publication.