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Otago Daily Times, Issue 17874, 3 March 1920, Page 4

Dogbt may reasonably be entertained with respect to the soundness of the opinion, expressed at a meeting of the Returned Soldiers' Association on Monday night, that '•the local authorities are acting illegally in fixing the assessment of properties at present values, whether they ue inflated or otherwise, for rating purposes. The principle upon which the municipal officials are to proceed in making their valuations is, in fact, defined by legislation. While it may be possible to point to cases in which properties rated on postwar values are to be found contiguous to properties rated on pre-war values, the anomaly, wherever it exists, may almost certainly be ascribed to an inadvertence on the part of the valuers. It may be generally assumed that the assessment approximates more or less closely to the value of the property for rating purposes as determined in the manner prescribed by law. In essence, however, the point made by discharged soldiers, who feel that there is a certain hardship in the increase in the rating of properties they have acquired, is that it is by their own demand for houses that the values of residential sections have been raised, and that an unfair penalty is thus imposed on them. The community will be entirely sympathetic towards the discharged soldier in this matter, and, if it were possible to make an exception in his favour, it would cheerfully acquiesce in any proposal under which he might secure the benefit of rating upon pre-war values. But it is difficult to see how any relief can be accorded to him without an amendment of the legislation that governs the system of rating.

If any of tha shareholders in the Colonial Sugar Refining Company of Australia have been perturbed in mind over the occurrence of industrial troubles in Fiji, where even the Indians employed in the canefields are experiencing the effects of the increased cost of living, their feelings should be soothed by tho proposal on the part of the directors to distribute among them war loan debentures to the amount of £650,000. As the paid-up capital of the company is £3,250,000, this proposal, the rejection of ■which need not be seriously anticipated, means that one-fifth of their paid-up capital is to be restored to the shareholders. Four years ago they received a bonus of £3,250,000 in the shape of stock in the Colonial Sugar Refining Company (Fiji and New Zealand), an offshoot from tho -present company, so that, upon the whole, sympathy with them upon the result of their investment in this particular enterprise would be more or less wasted. It is to be observed that the directors explain that, under normal conditions, _ a _ large proportion of the money, which is to be divided among the shareholders, would have been applied to the extension of the company's works in Queensland. The political regime in that State, however, is driving capital away from it. Yet, as the company's disclosed reserves at the close of the last financial year amounted to nearly half a million, and as there is a replacement and depreciation fund of probably ample proportions, the shareholders need be under no special anxiety respecting the ability of the company to extend its operations when the time becomes opportune.

A sober view of the effect of the wool "commandeer," which is now being criticised in some quarters as unjust in present circumstances to the growers, is taken by the Australasian Insurance and Banking Record. It adopts the opinion, based on the statistics contained in Messrs Dalgety and Co.'s annual review, that the purchases made by the British Government at an average price about 55 per cent, above pre-war values 'have been advantageous to the producers. "It does not follow," it says, "that the extreme prices lately obtained for the moderate quantities offered at the-Londcra auction sales represent what would have been obtainable if the purchases had not been conand if woolgrowers had been left to realise in Australasia, for it is easily conceivable that tho weight of the accumulated stocks in this part of the world would have acted as a drag oft the market." The receipt, it is pointed out, of cash after appraisement has been of the greatest benefit both to those directly interested as growers and also to the general community, and has placed the financial affairs of the dominions during the last four years in a favourable position, far superior to what would have been possible under any alternative system. The average price per bale of New Zealand wool, which was £12 17s 4d for the 1913-14 season, increased steadily for each of the five succeeding years. In 1914-15 it was £15 Is lid; in 1915-16, £21 2s lid; in 1916-17, £22 2s 4d; in 1917-18, £22 16s 2d; and m 1918-19, £23 10s. The averages per baJe beW taken a3 a basis, tho value of the total production of wool in Australia and New Zealand for the 1918-19 season was £60,077,579. In 1913-14 it was 33£ millions. The difference between the value of the clip in 1913-14 and that for 1918-19 was, consequently, about 26£ millions.