RATING ON UNIMPROVED VALUES

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12589, 26 August 1901, Page 4

RATING ON UNIMPROVED VALUES

The correspondent who writes to us over the nom de plume of “ Local Option ” complains that when dealing with his previous letter ten days ago we did not explain how the rates lost by the exemption of improvements in a certain street in his borough would be made up by the local body. We must plead guilty to the omission, but we should have thought it would have occurred to our correspondent without any guidance from us that if rates were lost by the exemption of improvements they would have to be recovered by obtaining a larger amount from land. The absence of unimproved lands will not, as our correspondent appears to imagine, throw all the additional burden upon “the small man with his four or five-roomed dwelling-house.” There will, in fact, be no additional burden to bear; the amount of taxation will be exactly the same; the only difference will be in the method in which it is raised. Of course, if tile ‘‘ small man ” chooses to occupy one of the most valuable sections in the borough with “ his four or five-roomed dwellinghouse,” lie will have to pay the same rates as the publican and the storekeeper next door; but as the enterprise of there people has given his property its present value he will not be very hardly used if ho is asked to pay the same rates. If he does not like the position he could l probably sell his section for enough to build a much better hone© in a Jess thickly populated part of the town. A.s for the dairy-farmer, who occupies the hill-tops in the borough, wo presume that his land is already rated on its grazing value, and we can, as we raid before, see no reason why ‘h's •improvements, which happen to consist of cows and carts and other-stock and plant, snould alone beexempted. lie certainly uses tho streets as much as the publican does, and probably benefits by the municipal expenditure much more. If an increase of £2 or .£3 a year in his rates is sufficient to drive him out of business, the imposition of the additional taxation would be a merciful relief from an unprofitable undertaking. If cur correspondent could succeed in persuading the Legislature to extend the municipal and county franchise to all the Par.iamsntary clectcrg, we should have little objection to leaving tbs choice between the two systems to tho ballot. Rut at present even vhe lew voters created by the Municipal Franchise Act have no voice deciding the matter,

only ratepayers having the right to express their opinion at the poll. The effect of this restriction was very well shown, in Auckland the other day, where after the propo* sal to introduce the system of rating on unimprovedl values had) been rejected by 1697 ratepayers, tbe “ Star ” demanded that Mr Fowlds, wbo represents the city in tha Hons© of Representatives, having received 6595 votes at the general election, should resign his seat because he supported! the reform. There were only 2450 votes polled’ altogether, and yet a professing Liberal newspaper urged that tbe representative of a constituency numbering some 19,000 electors, should accept the decision of a mere handful of ratepayers as the voice of a majority of the people. The adoption of outl correspondent’s suggestion to leave the question to the members of the local bodied would remove it rather further than eve? from the control of the electors. The voters could not be expected to ignore every other question and use the ballot for th<3 settlement of this one, and even if they could, they would not have a right to speak for the whole community. If the principle is sound, as our correspondent admits it is, it ought to be applied to local ratine as it is to colonial taxation.