MR STAFFORD’S REPLY.

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 142, 26 June 1901, Page 3

MR STAFFORD’S REPLY.

(To the Editor of the Times.)

Sir, —I should have been glad if I could have got Mr Harris to stick to the point (that is capital values). The correspond-

ence seems to have relapsed into the assessment of certain sections over which I am not prepared to waste my time, though I can assure Mr Harris that the fact of his getting £6OO for a property at the corner of Bright-street and Childers ltoad is not to be taken at its true value by any means. I believe that Mr Harris himself paid real good value for the property in question. It is not what can you get or what shall I - have to sell for which proves the value of a property. For instance, I know a property which changed hands lately at, say, £320 ; the house was about 15 years old. Now, Sir, I could have bought in that neighbourhood a better section and built a similar house

(at a profit) for the same money. Now, Sir, does Mr Harris hold that £320 was

its proper value ; it is simply absurd to entertain such an idea. Another case. A man bought a real good section on which was a good tenantablo house of four rooms for the sum of £47 10s, and had the deeds in his possession paid for at under £SO. Now, Sir, was that its real value '? You will certainly say no. So say I. I don’t think any one system is perfect in itself. Mr Bridges said at the meeting of ratepayers that “ I had not proved Mr Lysnar’s figures to bo wrong, but rather that the system of rating in the borough was bad.” AVhat Ido now say is that if Mr Bridges’ figures are correct, then, taking capital values as the basis, I am paying’double tho amount of rates in tho borough I pay in Whataupoko, therefore somebody must be paying less than half what they should. That is, sir, the only conclusion to bo drawn. That there is something wrong somewhere is quite plain, cither in tho system itself or with the persons making the valuations (or it may bo in both). As far as I am concerned, I want to get at the truth, and have no other object in view. lam fullypersuaded that the cost to householders using the water (if wo have drainage as well) will be quite double Mr Lysnar’s es-

timate—that is, Is 9d in the £. I am quite willing to leave tho matter in the hands of tho committee of gentlemen appointed to enquiro and report upon the subject; from them wo shall wo shall be able to get tho fullest information it is as yet possible to obtain. —I am, etc., Francis Stafford.