RATING QUESTION.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 269, 28 October 1932, Page 8

RATING QUESTION.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—ln reply to “Leave Well Alone,” I would suggest he sign his name, then his views may be of some value. In the first place he says the present system of rating has been used for 50 years. Why change it? Does the present-day building contractor use the msthods of 50 years ago? What would happen to the freezing works and farmers if they used the methods of 50 years ago? What would happen to our produce if we used the ships of 50 years ago? Who would care to see our womenfolk go back to the methods of 50 years ago? The fruitgrower is willing to pay his fair share of rates, but objects, and rightly So, to paying nates on his fruit trees, which are only equal to stock on a sheep farm or dairy farm, and neither the sheep nor dairy farmer pays rates on his stock. If a sheep or dairy fanner requires a little ready cash during the off season all they need do is to take a fqll culls to the stock sale, but if the fruit farmer requires any ready cash during the winter he has to borrow it on next season’s crop. Of course, he could chop up a few fruit trees and sell them for firewood, and then wait ten or twqjve years to regrow them. Then again, supposing he loses a number of trees through floods, or one of the many causes that destroy fruit trees every year, is it fair he should pay rates on them for the ten or twelve years whilst he regrows them? It may have been possible to make £lOOO from ten acres of fruit a few years ago. It was also possible for the sheep and dairy farmer, but to-day we are all in the same boat, with the fruit farmer at the bottom. However, 1 am prepared to sell, on behalf of myself and neighbours, anything from four acres to 200 acres of new season’s fruit at £7O per acre, delivered in Napier or Hastings, and the buyer can do what he likes with the easy profit of £3O per acre. Another thing, the fruit farmer runs far more risks with his crops and employs more labour, dirdctly and indirectly, pays more in freight to the railways than the sheep farmer. What about the soldier settlers on sheep farms, whose valuations in many cases have just been increased from £lOOO to £2OOO for improvements? These men, in good years, put the money they made back into their properties in improvements, and to-day they are to be rated on this, whilst a number of big sheepowners, in some cases adjoining, put their money into enlarging their holdings instead of improvements, and in many of these cases their valuations have been reduced. Rating on the unimproved value would create more employment, as a man would not then be penalised for improving the carrying capacity of his farm. I will give “Leave Well Alone” another example of the unjust system of rating on the capital value in the Hawke’s Bay County. Take a 10,000-acre sheep farm, employing the owner and nine other hands. This place would be rated on the unimproved value of the land, plus one set of farm buildings. Now cut up this place into ten farms, and place thereon ten married couples, and the carrying capacity could be increased to about double. The value of the land would be about the same, but the capital value would be up ten times, as you would have a large amount of new fences and 10 sets of farm buildings in place of one. In other words the farm would produce double, but rates on improvements would be ten times greater. It requires a good many others besides large sheepowners to carry on New Zealand. As regards factories and people coming out to live in the country, they would be jolly good company and make country life much brighter, and would help to pay the rates. As regards the loss of rates on the freezing works, every farmer would have to bear his share, but the reduction would benefit the as the works could reduce cnarges.—l am, etc. H. M. THOMPSON. Pakowhai, 27/10/32.