WHO SHOULD PAY?

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22353, 29 August 1934, Page 10

WHO SHOULD PAY?

PROBLEM OF enr RATES UNIMPROVED VALUE SYSTEM AN ARDENT ADVOCATE On the subject ef municipal rating, and the question “of the unimproved value system in particular, Mr Mark Silverstone is nothing if not an enthusiast, and considering the ardour and vigour of his advocacy of it in the Presbyterian Hall at Kaikorai last evening, ho deserved a larger audience than was coihprised by the bare score of persons scattered about the roomy building. Mr Silverstone pleaded with ratepayers as a whole to fling overboard tho legalised robbery of rating on the rental value, and vote for the unimproved value. Here was a chance for the worker to throw off for once the role of “ ragged-trousered philanthropist ” which had been his privilege under capitalist domination for so long, and assert his right to retain for himself and his family more of his hard-won earnings than he had been able to keep in the past. He trounced the opponents oC unimproved rating soundly, scornfully questioning their motives, and literally throwing gallons of cold water on what he regarded as their specious arguments. The speaker launched out in an, attack on the various arguments that had lately- been raised against unimproved rating. It was a typically plausible tale that they were told about the incidence of rating being increased if the unimproved value were its basis. They should not be led away by stories of the speed with which the city would increase its rates to make up any difference. Nothing of the sort could be done. 3jf a sum of £260,000 was sufficient for actual civic requirements, tbe corporation could not demand any more in rates, because the amount of money that a city could levy by means of rates was strictly regulated by law. He could assure them that, if they allowed .the existing rating system to be retained, their rates would very soon be increased because at the present time the City Council did not have a penny piece to spend on new works. He knew because ho was on the Finance Committee. If the council raised anything for more works, the rates must go up. Referring to the c!hims that unimproved rating had not proved itself, Mr Silverstone quoted figures from the local authorities’ handbook to show how much more popular unimproved rating was than any other method. No fewer than 167 local bodies were: rated on unimproved value, which meant that, out of a total population of 1,500,000, no fewer than 860,000 people paid rates on unimproved value. The newspapers would not give them those figufUs, and would probably doubt their authenticity, hut he could assure them that they were perfectly correct. At this stage the speaker became very sarcastic and scornful on the subject of the newspapers’ attitude to the issue. In Dunedin there were over 15,000 dwellings of from one to six rooms, and it was the people who owned these , who would benefit by unimproved value if they only knew how to vote. ■ It was true that some of the bigger property owners would also benefit, but only in respect of their homes. Their businesses would pay more.

In any case he alked why should the worker pay so much? The £4 a week man had to sit back and watch a humane. Government take 4s a week to keep unemployed who had no .work simply because of its capitalist administration, and then on top of that had to pay three weeks’ wages every year in rates. Was that justice or equity? All he asked was that those who benefited by the improved values resulting from the progress of the city should contribute more to the government of the city. He knew, of course, that the newspapers would say that his facts and figures were all wrong, but he would remind them that they came from the .annual reports of local bodies, which should be corrected by the newspapers if they were wrong. The speaker dealt at considerable length with figures supplied by the town clerk (Mr G. A. Lewin). It might be coincidence, of course, but it was very strange that Mr, Lewin’s views as well as his figures all served to reinforce the opinions of councillors at the time. Mr Lewin said that with unimproved rating the New Zealand Express Company would be saved £4OO a year, but he had nothing to say about the many large businesses whose rates would be increased to an amount more commensurate with their ability to pay, Mr Silverstone said that he knew that under unimproved rating ho himself would have to pay £2O extra, but he did not mind that as ho took riie broad view of the whole 1 matter —than same broad view which both city newspapers had commended, to his consideration, but which they had not been able to adopt themselves.

Mr Silverstono attacked the principle of* taxing improvements and the labour that produced them and called upon his audience to testify that unimproved rating had caused none of the industrial decline which its antagonists talked so much about in the cities that had adopted it—notably Sydney, Wellington, Napier, Hastings, Wanganui, Timaru and Invercargill. On the contrary all these places had progressed as a result of it.