LAND VALUE INFLATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 57, 8 March 1921, Page 9

LAND VALUE INFLATION.

(To c Editor. I Sir.—Some years ago the first sections on the Hauraki Plains opened were O.R.P. tenure at about i-3 per acre. To-day similar land is offered to returned soldiers at anything up to £40 per acre on the same tenure. Of course the Department say it has cost more to drain and road, but if they persist in digging canal; with a spade and tolerate a "do as little as you can for your wages" policy, naturally the land is goin°- to cost mere when wages are higher. But even then there is a good margin -between what the land has cost, to drain and th? price which the ""boys" pay for it. One great cause of all the inflation of land values has 'been the horde of land agents. The Government should fix the license fee at £50 instead of £5. Reputable agents would pay the larger amount readily, and the horde of agents who know nothing at all about farming would drop out. If a man wants xo be an engineer he has to pass the tests, so why not make jt so that an agent must have had practical experience of farming, and I'm sure that would help to stop half the inflation. The increased cost of Hauraki Plains sections is not unique, the same applies in a measure to bush sections, and with the latter it costs about treble to bring them in to what it did In pre-war days.—l am." etc. ANTI-BOOSTER.