VALUATION OF FARM PROPERTY

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 307, 22 September 1943, Page 8

VALUATION OF FARM PROPERTY

Method Under New Act CANDIDATE ESSAYS AN ANALYSIS Dominion Special Seratce. NEXV PLYMOUTH, September 21. . In an address at Kaimata tonight, Air. A. E. Marwick (Democratic Labour candidate for Stratford) said he had entered the contest because he believed in the Labour Party’s election platforms of 1935 and 1938, but was of opinion that Labour now bad no intention of giving effect to the pledges of the past. Assurance had been given that the Democratic Labour Party would honour those pledges. Conditions in the Internal Alarketing Division were chaotic, Air. Alarwick said. The muddle had resulted in excessive costs. If the guaranteed price Io the farmer had to be based on a 193 S basis Democratic Labour proposed to pay the farmer an amount equivalent to bis increased farming cost. The price had to be sufficient to pay decent wages ou farms. No one could expect the farmer to agree that it was fair to sell butter to the Americans in New Zealand at 1/3 a lb. when the United States was exporting butter to Great Britain at 2/5 a lb. “.Settling” Both Parties. Referring to the Land Sales Act, the candidate said that everyone interested in the acquisition of laud for returued soldiers had a right to be represented by counsel at the laud sales committee meetings. This would represent a harvest of pickings unequalled since the Mortgagors Rehabilitation Act of 1936. He explained that to ascertain the productive value oi a farm a budget must be prepared based on prices at November 15, 1940, less farm expenses, including reasonable remuneration for work performed by the farmer. The balance was capitalized at 4J per cent., and the productive value ascertained bv multiplying the net balance by 22. He illustrated the point as follows:—, _ A farm of 150 acres of good Taranaki land being farmed by its owner was todav worth, say, £4O an acre. Under the Act the Government desires to take over 100 acres to rehabilitate two returneu soldiers, leaving the homestead and oO acres, for the owner. Each soldier receives 50 acres. In preparing the budget, Air. Alarwick said he was going to assume that 50 acres would carry 30 cow's and give a butterfat return of 80001 b. a year. The revenue from 80001 b. of butterfat at> suv. 1/6 was £6OO, pigs would bring in £3O, bobby calves, etc., £lo—a total oi £640. Expenditure would be: Manure and seed £5O, rates and insurance £yo, cartage aud transport £2O. haymaking £35, electricity or power ±2O, cowshed maintenance £25, replacement of per cent, of stock (on a basis of ±l— per cow) £54, replacement of a horse and bull per annum £26, farm maintenance repairs £5O, reasonable remuneration lor Ihe work performed by the farmer (at £5 a week) £260, depreciation of plant worth £2OO (at 10 per cent.) £2O, telephones and incidentals £lO. Total, £oBo. This would leave a net revenue of ibO a vear which, capitalized at 4J per cent, would mean a productive value of ±1320. Before the real productive value were obtainable in this case, continued tlie .speaker, the amount required to erect dwellings and farm buildings must be taken into consideration because the farm had no productive value without buildings. Assuming that dwellings could be built for £lOOO, this amount would be taken from £1320, and they got the following amazing results:— For 50 acres of first-class laiUl, a allied at approximately £4O an acre, the farmer received approximately £6/10/- au acre. From the budget figures it would appear that the returned soldier would be earning about £6 a week, but as the interest ou farm and stock had not been allowed for, the net result of the S’lldiers labours would not be more than ±4/l(J/U Mr. Marwick said that this looked uncommonly like confiscation to the farmer and purgatory to the returned soldier. They would both be “settled. Lhe Democratic Labour Party, he added, would remove the Act from the Statute Book,

“You are governed by so many different bodies that you don’t, know where you arc. Centralized control is a big factor with lite present Government, and this leads definitely to socialism, where the people will take what is given to them. —Mr. L. A. Jordan (Real Democracy, Lyttelton).