LOAN CONVERSION

Taranaki Daily News, 5 March 1935, Page 8

LOAN CONVERSION

COUNTY OR RIDING BASIS. NO MORE AMENDMENT TO ACT. The Hon. S. G. Smith, Minister of Education, notified the Taranaki County Council yesterday that he had conferred with the Minister of Finance, regarding the council’s resolution calling attention to anomalies existing under the Local Authorities Interest Reduction and Loans Conversion Act.

Dealing with the question of whether legislation would be brought down to provide a permissive clause to enable local authorities to make adjustments in cases where ratepayers will be asked to pay additional rates on the conversion and consolidation of the loan debt over the whole area of a local authority or over ridings, as the case might be, his colleague stated that it was not proposed to introduce any further amendments to the Act. It was realised when the conversion legislation was being drafted that the consolidation of the loan debt either over the whole area or over the separate ridings would in some cases result in ratepayers being asked to pay slightly higher charges. It was. felt, however, that there was no real injustice in that case, as the amenities which had been provided by loans raised in the past were now of benefit to the rate- 1 payers over a wider area than they originally were. That, of course, referred particularly to road works where the roads were now used by all and sundry as a result of the revolutionary changes in road transport. The Minister concluded by saying that taken all-in-all he was satisfied that the day of the special rating firfea was past and that it would be a mistake of the first order to introduce any further legislation dealing with conversion, which would practically have the effect of preserving the old special rating system.