INFLATED LAND VALUES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 282, 28 November 1932, Page 14

INFLATED LAND VALUES.

Instead of pegging down the rate of exchange, what ought to have been done long ago was the pegging down of the prico of land, for as everyone knows there would have been no necessity for tho former if the latter had been done. We hear a lot of claptrap about the cost of production as regards farmingtile real origin of the trouble is not this, but the fictitious values brought about by an orgy of wild speculation, unearned increment and the loading of our main (source of revenue by excessive taxation and land agents' commissions, lawyers' fees, etc. So long as it is possible for the individual to become rich and retire in affluence in this land gambling business, 60 long will we ever be faced, periodically, with crises 6uch as the present. Why should Tom, Dick and Harry have to pay for this folly by means of this proposed tax disguised on the rate of exchange ? It will be noted that it is practically the Reform party in the House which is fathering this new species of Government madness, the same party which was responsible for robbing the people of this country of its birthright for a mess of political pottage by the conversion of the L.I.P. into the freehold. From that time onwacds the gambling has been going on and now, once again, its victims are beginning to whine because they have lost and expect us to foot the bill for their folly. At the end of the war Mr. Massey warned the primary producers of this country that they were paying too much for the land and that if produce fell in price they would get their fingers burnt. It was too late—he and his , party had already built the fire of speculation madness and they could not put it out— or at least, made no attempt to. I think that the only hope for this country is for prices to fall still lower and lower and thus automatically deflate land values, for, apart from war debts, the latter are really the seat of our present and future troubles. This having happened, it is to be hoped that then some statesman with the vision will arise and enact, however difficult it may appear at legislation in this respect, which will save the people from themselves. What we want is not a Land Develop■ment. League, but a . Land Deflation League. My 1/ is here if anyone, will start one, so that the common herd such as myself may be educated from the public platform as to the iniquity of trafficking ,in land and its far-reaching . evil effects not only to this generation, but to those yet unborn. F. R. BATE.