REPLY TO "STRAIGHT GRIFFEN."

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume III, Issue 77, 14 March 1913, Page 3

REPLY TO "STRAIGHT GRIFFEN."

TO THE EDITOR. Sir.— There is not much to reply to in “Straight Griffen’s” letter, except that he seems to think there is an increasing community-created va.ue in a house. The idea is not an uncommon one, but it is nevertheless incorrect. Let me give one instance. The owner of a house and section finds that the saleable value of bis property is £.560. The section is worth £lOO and the house £4OO. The house is insured for £3OO. Two or three years later an agent assures the owner that he can get £6OO for the property because footpaths, lights, water, etc., etc., have since ei-.me to the locality, and the pro; <: ..v is worth- at least £lOO mere, lint let tb.e owner go to the insurance man and ask for another £lOO on his insurance, and the agent would smile, because he would 'know that it was the land and not the house that had increased in value. “.Straight Griffen's” last remarks give the clue to who is writing, anti I am lather surprised, particularly at the personal matters touched upon. All 1 can say is that 1 cannot bui'd in tb.e air. I have sold sections at considerably increased prices on what I originally paid, fhe one referred to in Havelock was in a place where prices had increased about 100 per cent, inside two years, and I had to buy again at the increased prige the verv same day, as I had timber on its way down the line. 1 gamed little or nothing, as I had to buy at the ruling price and it left me as I was, except that both of us got sections which suited our own individual wants better. Your correspondent may rest assured that 1 and others wili be guided by present prices in fixing our figures on property and not the prices of five, ten or twenty years ago. If the community fads to take the community-created value, private individuals will take it every time. Joseph Fells, who gives tens of thousands of pounds to the cause of land value taxation in aT Englishspeaking countries, makes a gc>od deal of it out of community-created values himself, and Ir.s position is quite logical. He i; demonstrating that the system is wrong and using the proceeds to try and alter it.—l am,' etc., E. STEVENSON. Hastings, March 13, 1913.