RATING SYSTEMS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22356, 1 September 1934, Page 24

RATING SYSTEMS

TO THE EDITOR.

g IIt _Your correspondent “ Valuer,” whose letter appears in your issue of August 25, would appear to be under the impression that rates arc not levied on a uniform principle in districts where ratin" on the unimproved value is in operation, and if I may be permitted so to put it your reply does not make tlie position clear. The explanation is that when tlie Rating on Unimproved Values Act w* lß passed in 1896 it contained a provision (section 20) to the effect that the system should not applv to water rates, gas rates, electric-light rates, sewage rates, or hospital and charitable aid,rates, this section obviously was of no importance in districts where the separate rates herein mentioned were not levied, but otherwise the effect was seriously to restrict tlie principle of the measure and to necessitate the collection of rates under two different systems. For example, the first poll under the Act was taken in Wellington as far back as November, 1901, when fflie system was adopted. Thereafter people' took it for granted that rates in

this city were levied on the unimproved value, when, as a matter of fact, practically half the rate-revenue was still levied on the annual value, none but the general rate and the Library rate being struck on the unimproved value. Section 20 ultimately became section 103 of the Rating Act, 1008, but in 1911 was passed the Rating Amendment Act, the purport of which was (1) that in every district after the passing of that Act wherein a rating poll was successful all rates were to be levied on the unimproved value, but (2) that in those districts where a poll had been already taken, it -was necessary to take a further poll. It was for this reason that a second poll was taken in Wellington in April, 1927, when the ratepayers decided by 8169 votes to 4262 that all rates should be levied on the unimproved value. The result is that in this city the entire rate-revenue exceeding half a million sterling is collected in accordance with the verdict of the ratepayers. Ido not pretend for a moment that the system is satisfactory to everybody, but I have no hesitation in assuring your readers that the only dissatisfied persons arc those —numerically insignificant but admittedly influential—who regard it as perfectly legitimate to blockade the people’s land.—l am. etc., P. J. O’Reoan. Wellington, August 29. TO THE EDITOR. Sib, —Your correspondent “ Unemployed Ratepayer ” should stick to facte when writing to the press especially as he is careful to shelter under a nom de plume. As I happen to be a person he misquotes, let me give him a straightout denial of having used the phrase “ Dunedin is a dirty, filthy, shabby hole with worse slums than Glasgow'.” What I said, and am not going to apologise for, as truth needs no apology, was, “ While we had not the big, slummy industrial areas of Glasgow 1 bad seen individual houses in a w r orse state of repair and not fit for a billy goat to live in, here, in fact the only olace I had seen to equal it was in old Quebec city.’ Being a humanitarian I don’t want to see slums in either Glasgow or Dunedin, and I maintain that the present system by penalising improvements is conducive to slum conditions. Denying a state of affairs never improved it yet. Your correspondent is wwong when he states that I hunted for a home with a sewer adjoining. I lived in one for years and your correspondent might have been manly enough to question me at the meeting, if he did not believe me. And again, I did not squeal. What I did do w r as to show the escaping sewage to Mrs Marshall MacDonald, Mr Pearce (corporation inspector), and Cr W. Scott at the time ho was contesting the mayoralty with Mr Black. Unlike your correspondent I deal in facts; so am not afraid of names. If your correspondent doubts my statement you can give him my address and I will accompany him around some of fhe houses I have referred to. Finally. I like your correspondent’s joke. “The rich man sits back and says nothing.” This is just the tenor of his whole epistle. What the rich man does and will do again the night before the poll is to pay for some expensive advertisement. Being a “gentleman unafraid.” I sign my name.— I am, etc., C. T. MacArttiur. Mornington, August 30. TO THE EDITOR Sin, —Your correspondent “ Student ’’ quotes the rates on properties in the Queen’s drive and Prince Albert road, St. Hilda, and then gives his guess as to what they would be under the present system in Ihe city. Now, he admits guessing will not: got one anywhere, so 1 wonder if he could say what the real rating of the city would be if the trading departments were not run for profit and then portion of those sanm profits used to “relieve” the rates of city property holders. When we have legislation. as in Great Britain, stopping this profit-taking from trading departments to ease rating taxes, only then will the people know exactly what amount ot taxation they are paying. St. Hilda ratepayers receive no hand-out from any of these profits, so they are not only paying their own rates but some proportion of city ones, too. —I am, etc., Queen’s Drive.