LAND VALUES

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21085, 9 February 1934, Page 5

LAND VALUES

MORTGAGOR AND MORTGAGEE OPINIONS OF MR ALBERT FREEMAN That the adjustment of land values was a matter for the mortgagor and the mortgagee to settle and that the Government should not interfere was the opinion expressed by Mr Albert Freeman, City Valuer, to a representative of "The Press" yesterday. Mr Freeman was discussing the statement of Mr J. B. Hine. a former Cabinet Minister, regarding the necessity of writing down land values if dairying was to continue on the land and his suggestions of the lines along which the Government should carry out the necessary adjustments between mortgagees and mortgagors. Mr Freeman said he agreed that some readjustment was necessary, but he did not see why the Government should be broufcat into it. It should be a matter which the parties concerned should settle themselves. He also thought that the dairy farmers, like any other business man, should have built up reserves when times were good to meet the bad times through which they were now passing. The trouble was not altogether the land values but the amount of mortgage on the land that was the real difficulty. In many cases farmers had taken on more than they could keep up, but the same applied to people in the cities. If land values, were to fluctuated violently as the prices of produce had fluctuated, there would be no stability at all.