HUGE LOCAL BODY DEBT

Taranaki Daily News, 24 July 1931, Page 9

HUGE LOCAL BODY DEBT

DOUBLED IN SEVEN YEARS BURDEN ON FARMING COMMUNITY NEED FOR REFORM SUGGESTED. The huge burden of local body debt on the farming community was emphasised. at the annual meeting of the Taranaki Chamber of Commerce last night by the president (Mr. L. M. Moss), who in his presidential address stressed the need for some reform There were in New Zealand at Maich 31 1928, GBG local bodies actively functioning, said Mr. Moss, and this number would be added to from year to year unless it was more generally realised that the system called for some check. The figures were available from the Year Book and, without wearying his audience with the details, he thought the following figures would indicate the need for some reform;— (a) In ten years from 1919 to 1929 the total receipts of local bodies had more than trebled. (b) The rates collected doubled from £3,000,000 to approximately £6,000,000. (c) The expenditure more than trebled from £7,000,000 to £22,000,000, while the nett debt increased from £24,000,000 to £58,000,000. (d) Increase per head of debt rose from £23 16s 6d to £45 13s Bd, and the annual loan charge from £1 5s 3d to £2 18s Gd. As the Year Book for 1930 put it, continued Mr. Moss, “within the last seven years tlje local body debt has more than doubled.” This was of especial moment to the farming community in times of falling prices, when the debt pressed with treater severity on each acre of land m production. A table prepared by the Massey Agricultural College showed that while export prices in 1929 were 145 points, compared with 100 at the 1914 level, rural rates were 274 compared with 100 at the 1914 level. The further fall in prices since 1929 still further accentuated the burden on the producer. It was a matter of surprise that this question had not received more attention from the farming community, because the ultimate weight of this increased indebtedness came back to the producer.