The Evening Star. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1934. RATING SYSTEMS.

Evening Star, Issue 21820, 8 September 1934, Page 12

The Evening Star. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1934. RATING SYSTEMS.

In the matter of rating systems a, good many ratepayers must have been in the position of Omar when he heard great argument About it and about, and ever more Came out by that same door where in I went. There has been too much argument, making for confusion more than enlightenment. The issue must be simplified to assist a conclusion. Fortunately, that is easy. In the first place, it will he wise for those who will have to vote on Tuesday to put all figures that they have read, with their contradictions, out of their heads. There arc no figures to show how a change ot system, if it were adopted, would work out, because it is the next thing to impossible that the Government valuations which were made thirteen years ago for quite a different purpose should be applied. If they were applied it would be no common scandal. Thirteen years ago, for example, there were perhaps half a dozen houses on Tainui, an area now closely occupied. There may have been half as many at Opoho as there are to-day. What would be the worth of values fixed thirteen years ago for those districts ? And all over the city and suburbs values have been changing.

Figures can be dismissed.' They are purely conjectural. Hating on unimproved values becomes a leap in the dark. Is it wise to take such leaps in a stable community? Once or twice they have been taken by this community; it has never been made a habit. The mayor for whom it took the last exhorts it to leap again. We think the Chamber of Commerce is most wise in warning against that recklessness. The chamber points out that this country has passed through a period of unprecedented stress and strain. There is now a definite improvement in the outlook. Surely no worse time could he chosen to try experiments with the rating system. As tho chamber states: “ Whether the proposed change would shift the burden of taxation in the way its sponsors pre-

diet is open to the very gravest doubts. The one thing that is certain is that the whole of the business community will be completely disorganised if the proposals are carried. Some firms will certainly be forced out of business. Others which might have contemplated commencing business in this city will be driven elsewhere. Confidence will be shaken, and all business will be at a standstill until the full cheats of the change are ascertained. Such a check to the business community must inevitably bo reflected in reduced wages ami increased unemployment.” H that seems like making the worst of a danger, is it rational to suppose that any portion of a city can bo really helped —residents of this suburb or another suburb—by adding burdens to another portion, which is the declared aim and object of this agitation? internationally the fallacy has been proved of expecting help or prosperity by such means, and what is true in the big sphere must be true in the small.

The chamber is against a change in the rating system. The great majority of the City Council has declared itself against a change. Have the advocates of imscttlement more experience, or have they shown more wisdom, with which to back their belief? Where counsel is needed there is no doubt who should be accepted as guides, it is to the credit of Mr P. J. O’Regan, visitor from Wellington who would direct our steps, that in the addresses ho has given he kept clear of figures. 'There was no attempt on his part to show that residents of Caversham or South Dunedin would be almost immune from rates if they were living in Kent terrace or Adelaide road—presumably because he knows Wellington too well. It is a theory, so far as we can follow him, with which Mr O’Regan is in love—one which, pushed to its extreme limits of single tax, has not made any marked progress in New Zealand, and, . well within those limits, gets only opportunist support from his Labour Party. Mr O’Regan preached it before here, vainly, on the occasion of the last rating poll. He sought also to convert us to Proportional Representation, another most beautiful theory, which his party has since abandoned. As to the theory of unimproved rating wo may say more later, but there is a saying—a very ancient one—which may be recommended to Mr O’Regan and his associates in this present campaign: “In nothing be over-zealous. The due measure in all the works of man is best. For often one who zealously pushes towards some excellence, though he be pursuing a gain, is really being led utterly astray by the will of some Power -which makes those things that are evil seem to him good, and those things seem to him evil that are for his advantage.”

Wellington, Masterton, and Feildiug are all on the unimproved system. A sub-committee set up by the Municipal Association of New Zealand to consider local body taxation consisted of the mayors of those three places, together with counsel to tho association. The committee reported this year that “in respect of municipal taxation the system of rating on annual value is to be preferred, provided that it is accompanied by surtax on property not adequately used by the owner.” Where the rating was on unimproved value, it thought that water, drainage, and hospital rates should still be on the annual value. The committee was convinced by its investigations that “ rating on the annual value was fair and equitable throughout. It is rating on income and does not eat rip capital.” “ But,” say the advocates of a different system, “ it penalises improvements.” It is certainly annoying when the man who adds a sun xmrch or a verandah to his house finds his rates increased by a fractional sum in consequence, but it is reasonable to assume that those who can afford the best houses are not in the worst position to pay rates. To suggest that the liability in question formed a general deterrent to the improvement of properties would be to suggest that Dunedin and Auckland, following the annual values system, are more unfinished, less attractive cities than Christchurch and Wellington, which would be absurd. And there is one way in which the unimproved system discourages improvements, -which is the worst of all. It puts a drastic and immediate penalty on gardens. To quote the town clerk’s closely-reasoned report: “If any system of taxation such as we are dealing with—i.e., local rating—can be said to have any influence at all on the housing question, then it seems clear that the rating on unimproved values system exerts a pernicious influence.” It is for the advocates of change to prove their case. The advantages of this change have assuredly not been proved. If half that has been claimed for the doctrinaires’ system, supported by fairy figures, were true, St. Kilda, Wellington, and towns and boroughs rated like them would contrast with all the others like light with darkness; and everybody knows that no such contrast exists. When tho city beautiful and the city well governed is selected by others for admiration, it is Dunedin more often than not.