VALUATION FIGURES

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11223, 31 May 1922, Page 5

VALUATION FIGURES

INTERESTING COMPARISONS HOW NORTH AND SOUTH ISLANDS HAVE FARED. COMPREHE NSIY E TABLE. (Special to “X.Z. Times.") AUCKLAND. May -2D. A comprehensive table which Mr PE. C'heaf, chairman of the Aufckland Railways and Development League, has sent' to the Taxation Committee now sitting at Wellington for its digestion. contains a quantity of interesting information. Among other matters for thought O' the statement he makes as a result of Ins researches that in 1920 the total cultivated area of the Dominion was 1-8,001,776 acres, of which 11,000,000 were in the North Island and 6,000,000 in the South Island. In 1918 the total area under cultivation was 17,386,160, which is about 618.000 acres less than in 1920, yet the land valuations for the Dominion increased in those two rears by nearly £39.000,000, the actual increases being £27,837,084 for the North Island and £10.987,476 for the Pouth Island Out of this enormously increased valuation in the North Island lor two years Auckland’s share of the extra burden amounted to more than half, or in exact figures £14,572,vll. SOARING VALUES. Another interesting investigation showing how values have soared m the North Island of recent years has been made by Mr Cheat. The total valuation of land alienated for easli from the foundation of the colony to 18S0 averaged Ss 3d per acre in the North Island and 17s 4d in the South Island. Since 18S0, however, the North Island values have risen till in 1920 the- average price of alienation was £8 6s per acre, while in the South Island it was £3 4s. In other words, the valuation of North Island land alienated has increased twenty-fold since 1880. and that of the South Island four-fold. In the Auckland district the valuation of land under cultivation increased by £2 1.3 s nor acre between the years 1918 and 1920, while the increase; per head of the assessed county population of tile Auckland provincial district was £172 Ss. an increase of £S6 per year for the two years. As an instance of the future in store for the Auckland provincial district, and incidentally for the Government Treasury, the occupied area at the present time is only 32 per cent, of the 16.232,960 acres of the Auckland province, whereas 50 per cent, of the area of the Wellington province is occupied, 48 per cent, of Taranaki, and 63 per vent, of Hawke’s Bay. “NO CHEAP LAND.” Mr Cheal expresses the opinion that if values increase at this ratio in the future the Dominion will never be able to compete with the larger self-govern-ing colonies in cheap land for settlement purposes. He contend that what is needed is some method of taxation which will enforce the settlement of our waste lands held for speculation near large centres of population, and he urges the taking of a leaf from the taxation books of some of the Canadian local governments as the fairest way to settle the problem of waste lands in private ownership. Areas there were given away, with provision for fixed acreages being cultivated and improvements carried out annually, taxation penalties increasing by 100 per cent, yearly being imposed on defaulters, thus preventing the reaping of unearned increment at the expense of others’ industry.