[?] Co. Pays Heavily

[?]ecision [?]rivy Council

For Unwanted Amenities

From this time forward, the Colonial Sugar Refining Co. 11, apparently, be expected to pay the Lautoka Town Council mnd £7,000 per annum. In return the company will get its

rbage collected.

S appears to be the outcome a Privy Council decision, cently announced.

Colonial Sugar Company, of alia, at times has given proof great social consciousness. It lone a good deal, in Fiji, to le the communities around near its sugar mills with ities, and a higher standard ing. probably it is not so happy Lautoka. If it would consent lk, it might say something Lautoka biting the hand that ong time ago, the Co. built g sugar mill near the then township of Lautoka. Lautoka chiefly on the cane-growers, the mill-workers, and the ;ies of the port from which is shipped, the canefields extended north ;outh, and the mill’s output sed, the town of Lautoka Presently, the boundaries of town crept up to within ig distance of the boundaries i 700 acres or so held by the se 700 acres contained not the mill and a typical CSR fctlement —houses for the staff, tion grounds, first-class roads, is, light and drainage—but ands.

N the Lautoka Town Council, ivays seeking funds, and couraged by the Government, brain-wave. It would bring 3R Co.’s property within the irea, and rate it!

Co.’s reaction was not It did not want to be ed in the town—it already ill the amenities the town provide. It pointed out that would have been no town mentioning, if there had been 11. promises were sought, but The Council extended its boundaries, and suggested a for rating.

Co. argued that the land be valued as if no mill I. But valuer S. A. Tetzner was worth £161,297, and they to law about it. (Messrs, m Scott and Co. for CSR, lessrs. Munro, Warren, Leys lermode for the Council).

The case in 1953-54, shuttled back and forth between Supreme Court and local Magistrate. The valuer stuck to his £161,000, and the magistrate made it £110,493; but the Co. still protested that the real value, if the presence of the mill was ignored, was much less.

Eventually, a case was stated for the Privy Council by way of appeal from the Supreme Court. It has taken years to get a decision.

The decision was announced from London at the beginning of July.

A press report says “the rating valuation of £110,439 Stg, set by the magistrate’s court, in respect of 650 acres of land, was affirmed”.

It is considerably less than the £161,000, but a lot more than the land would be worth if there was no sugar mill in those parts.

Head Office of the CSR Co., in Sydney, said philosophically that that should be the end of a very long argument. The Co., on the chance that it would have to pay, has been making provision for this annual charge, in its accounts, for years. It anticipated, on the rate of 1/41 in the £ on the apparently confirmed valuation, that it would have to pay £7,000 per annum.

“We shall get nothing from the Town Council except garbage collection”, said a spokesman. “It’s a lot to pay for garbage collection”.

The Council will receive arrears of rates over three or four years, plus a very large amount repre senting legal costs covering some years of argument.

For the

Fruit Trade

Rarotonga's new cool store is now on its way. This stage was reached mid - June. In background is the Raro tonga freezer.

Photo: W. H. Percival.