URBAN FARMLANDS RATING DILL.

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17837, 9 October 1929, Page 7

URBAN FARMLANDS RATING DILL.

(To the Editor.)* Sir, —In Thursday’s Times I read the Borough Gouneil’s discussion on the Urban Farmlands Rating Bill, when councillors decided to support the F-eilding Council in objecting to the Bill. I was surprised at Cr. Barton saying there was no rural Jand of any cV.mit in Hamilton. Well, tha ?o»i.i;id south toundaries of the borough are nothing else hut grazing or rural section!;. What I mean is the leaseholders have to make their rents and rates out of a few cows wiih their own | labour. I am leasing eight acres of domain land, and paying Eli rent and £l7 rates a year. With good farming I oauld not keep more than four cows

] on the eight acres, and to to tha. I have to grow a lot of winter Iced, which costs money and labour. It has always been my opinion that these outside sections should be valued for rates on a butter-fat basis, and if the leaseholder did not farm his land he should have to pay the same rates pei acre as his more industrious neighbour. t believe a bill was passed a few years back to exempt belt lands from'rates, but who is getting any relief from that Act? I am sure I am not; nor are my neighbours, because there are buildings on the sections. I think our councillors must admit we require some relief from rates, but how are we going to get it without the Government’s Bill? I will give an instance of the unfair rating: I am paying at the rate of over £2 per acre. The next farm over my boundary fence, on Bretton Estate, pays at the rate of 12s 9d per acre, and the only advantage I get is a vote in the borough elections. In reading your leader in Saturday’s paper, you say the scheme would encourage land speculation, but there cannot be any speculation in belt lands. —I am, etc., WILLIAM HOLTBY. Grey Street, Oct. 7.