LAND VALUATIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14144, 20 August 1909, Page 8

LAND VALUATIONS.

Under the above heading Dr. Giles wrote:—" I regard the unimproved value of land as the fairest and fittest object of taxation." I have often read Dr. Giles letters with interest.and profit, but on this occasion I must differ in toto with him. There is no such thing as unimproved value of land, either rural .or urban. It is impossible to estimate the unimproved value, therefore any taxation on the impossible must be unjust, and that, I am sure, .is the last wish of Dr. Giles. For the past eight years I have had as a constant companion of my walks round my farm a light steel mattock, which I use as a walkingstick, but also to take up gorse, blackberries, briars, manuka, etc., that I meet with on my peregrinations round my stock.' I have burnt fern and rubbish on every favourable opportunity, and sown grass seed in spring and autumn on every likely spot, / besides dibbling in about 30,000 plants every month of a certain kind of grass during the several winters. I have also had ploughed and sown with certain grasses three or four paddocks. Now, I cannot possibly tell the value of all these and hundreds of other improvements, nor can anyone else. The improvements are so blended and intermixed with the land that they cannot be separated. No one but Henry George can possibly separate* the improvements from the land so. as to get the socalled unimproved value, and as he is dead the problem will never be solved. Many years ago I challenged the Valuation Department to demonstrate to me—for the benefit of the public—with'mathematical certainty the unimproved value of any single section of land in New Zealandtown or country. Not all the officials in the Dominion can do it. - '

Nature has been working for and against Sae. Rain has supplied me with nitrogen, but the sun and drying winds have wiped out certain grasses, and I have had to replace with others that will* hold. The pros, have won. Again, I have stocked with sheep and cattle, and wherever their droppings have lodged millions of worms have ameliorated and' pulverised the" soil. Who is there in New Zealand can say with anything like certainty how much good, i.e., what'is the value of the improvement caused/ by these millions of underground workers—the worms? I have applied lime and phosphatic manure to the land, leaving the cattle and sheep to supply me with potash and nitrogen. Who can estimate the value of the latter? Geobge Wilks.