RAGLAN COUNTY COUNCIL

Waikato Argus, Volume XXXV, Issue 5535, 17 February 1914, Page 2

RAGLAN COUNTY COUNCIL

For the sixth year in succession the Raglan County Council has collected all, its rates, that is, the amount due by Ha European ratepayers. For the present year (1913-4), the total of all rates due by Europeans was £7731 10s 3d, for which rate demands were posted on the Ist August, 1913, and the last lot of rates was paid on the 14th February. 1914. As to the rates due on land occupied and owned by natives, for the same period the total .rates amounted to £llß6 7s fid, and of this sum £B7 Is unly has been paid and even the greater portion of this has been paid by Europeans who are negotiating for the. lease or purchase of various native sections. What a contrast this presents to the large amount so promptly paid by the European section of the ratepayers, especially so when it <s considered that the natives have, and make free use of, the, roads and other facilities of the county. Under the Rating Amendment Act, 1913, the local authority can, at. an interval of nine months after the rate becomes due, register a lien against the land for the amount of rates then unpaid and before the land can be dealt with by either sale or lease the amount of such lien will have to be uplifted. This is all that can be done jn the matter, and it is to be hoped that the registration of such liens will force the native to either .cultivate the land himselt or else puss it into the hands of Europeans who will do so. In the Raglan county alone at the present time there is some 50,000 or 60,000 acres of land in the hands of natives, in sections of an area of from 20 acres to • 1000, laying absolutely unproductive, except in many cases for luxurious crops of blackberry and other noxious weeds; further, most of this land is good sheep country, and some in the north end of the county excellent dairying land.