"INJUSTICE TO FARMERS"

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 103, 29 October 1945, Page 6

"INJUSTICE TO FARMERS"

Sir, —In your issue of October 20 there appears a fierce fulmination by Councillor Maher against the alleged injustice to the farmers in Hutt County in the matter of rating. There is one peculiar omission in the paragraph in that the fact is not stated that Mr. Maher was denouncing the adoption of rating on the unimproved value when a poll was taken on the day of the local body elections in May of last year. He indulges in the usual inexcusable inaccuracy that farmers are the principal ratepayers, and he disregards altogether the fact that Hutt and Makara Counties are in large part suburbs of this city and that the value of land therein is necessarily affected by its proximity to such an important and growing centre of population. It is no secret that not a few farmers in the Hutt County for years have been having a handsome rakeoff" in selling their farms for building sites. The change in the system of rating means that less "manna" will fall than formerly, but the great majority of the ratepayers—Mr. Appleton estimates them at 80 per cent.—have the satisfaction of knowing that they Will be fined no more for building houses or otherwise improving their properties. As they alone are responsible for the change, Mr. Maher should complain to his constituents instead ot airing the imagined grievances of a few of them to the public The Year Book shows that practic* ally half the unimproved value (45 per cent) of the land of New Zealand is in boroughs and independent town districts. Statistics cannot give the full facts, however, since land in counties is in fact frequently influenced by its proximity to centres of population. Oj this fact the counties of Hutt and Makara are very apt illustrations. So much for the contention that a tax on the unimproved value is a class tax on farmers.-! am, etc., GEORGIST<