METAL ROYALTY

Taranaki Daily News, 30 November 1934, Page 2

METAL ROYALTY

SUBSIDY ON SMALL QUANTITIES. HIGHWAY BOARD’S LATITUDE. Indications that the Main Highways Board would exercise a considerable amount of latitude in regard to the payment of subsidies on the amounts paid by local bodies as royalty on metal used for main highways was made evident at Opunake yesterday after the Egmont County Council had explained its position in this respect. Mr. Mclvor said the council obtained its metal supplies from a number of pits in various parts of the county as required and it would ba no great advantage to acquire a metal reserve, especially where the amount of metal used was small. Mr. McKenzie agreed that each case had to be taken on its merits and that where only a small amount of metal was required in one locality it was unnecessary to go to the expense of acquiring a pit. The board would pass such expenditure. Mr. Mclvor asked that some definite instruction be issued; otherwise the local public works office would not pass the account. At Manaia Mr. Long said it was only right that the man whose property was entered for metal should receive some compensation for the damage done to property. The matter of royalties on stone was also raised at Stratford by Mr. T. R. Anderson, chairman of the Stratford County Council, The council, he said, had been in the habit of paying a royalty on pits, and that was all the owner of a pit received from it. “We find that if a farmer knows he is going to get a royalty on stone taken from his property,” he said, “he will facilitate the work of the engineer in opening up the pits. We get a better service by paying a small royalty.” Cutting out the royalty was going to cause much trouble, said Mr. J. W. Spence, county engineer. There was not much chance of getting metal from the property of farmers who were not going to receive anything for it. The difficulty about paying surface damage only was that shell rock, for instance, which was very valuable to the county council, wag only found on poor land, worth, say, £9 an acre. The county would probably use only a quarter acre in a year, and all the farmer would receive would be £2 ss. There would be no encouragement for farmers finding a deposit of stone to notify the council. They would probably hide it. By its present arrangement the county was paying 4d a yaid royalty, continued Mi. Spence, and that was to be increased to 6d after the first two years. JTne arrangement was for 12 years. About 6000 yards were being taken out of the pit annually. Mr. C. J. McKenzie said that by paying a royalty of 6d on that amount of ctor.e the council would be paying for the land over and over again. Mr. Spence: We would never have known about this pit unless we had be£n told about it by the lessee. Mr. McKenzie: You must take each case on its meiits. We would not want to interfere with any agreement. At the present rate, said Mr. Spence, the farmer on whose property the pit was received about £lOO a year. He received nothing for “severance,” or surface damage.