ABSENTEE LANDLORDS

Evening Star, Issue 15268, 21 August 1913, Page 6

ABSENTEE LANDLORDS

[Per "United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, August 21. At the- Counties' Association Conference To-day Mr Ryder (Castlepoint) moved— That the Government be requested to so amend the rating powers of county councils as to give them power to levy on every absentee landowner a rate to be known as the absentees' rate-, which shall consist of an additional percentage, not exceeding 10 per cent., on evJry rate and separate rate that may be levied on his property in any year following that in which the owner ha 6 not resided within the county for at least six months. The mover said that in his county there were a lot of absentee ratepayers who did not improve their properties to half the same extent as the resident ratepayers. The result was that the latter were indirectly taxed to make up for the absentees' shortcomings. The Chairman: Have you tried rating on unimproved values? Mr Ryder: "Yes, and we dropped it. We found that, the more we improved our properties the higher rose the value of our properties." He asserted that hbsentee landlords were a drag on a progressive district. In the general discission that ensued absentee owners were variously referred to. One delegate asserted that they were a curse to the country, while another contended that they very often expended more capital on their land than, local owners. It was also pointed out that the remit did not make aDy distinction between an absentee who improved his land and a neighbor who held for a rise in value. The motion was rejected.