CROWN LAND VALUATIONS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2674, 14 June 1905, Page 8

CROWN LAND VALUATIONS.

(Tapanni Courier.)

We have frequent occasion to refer to the idiosyncrasies of the Crown Land Valuation Department, and the people of this district are becoming thoroughly dissatisfied with the methods of tha office. We recently referred to borough valuations, and instanced iiroperty worth £100 being valued for taxation purposes at five times that amount. Attention has recently been directed to Crookston valuations, where the maximum has risen from £4 to £8 during tho last five years ; and in one instance the valuator wanted to place £9 on a new sectler. In a few instances £4 only is levied on some of the choicest lots, and the land' and improvements are superior to the properties valued at £8, and much nearer the railway. It is an undeniable fact that whilst some farmers with only mediuMk quality land are rated from £6 to £8 an acre, others with the best soil in the world are getting away at £4, and hence the dissatisfaction expressed by the farming community at the Crown land valuations. Some years aeo the method was far more equitable, and each district was uniformly rated in accordance with the quality of the soil, and the land was classed as follows: — (1) The very best wheat land; (2) first-class oat land, that would not regularly produce wheat; f3) second-class agricultural land; and (4) purely pastoral country. At present there is no method, and we can point to two adjacent farms in this district, the best valued at £6, and a very secondary property £8. And many more instances of a similar kind occur all over the district. In another part of the district we can y-oint out a secondary farm, 10 miles from a. railway, rated at £6: whilst a first-class property in the same locality is booked at £4. All over this district valuations are unfairly adjusted, and it is generally the richest men who get away with the lower valuations, simply becyuse they are enterprising enough to work the valuator to see through their spectacles. Farmers continue to growl both loud and deep anent their valuations, but they will not appear at the Assessment Court, and there only will the remedy for the overXHkiSd b« &M&d. T fe§ iS£9,liie tax is just

as unevenly adjusted. The willing few pay and the wily many escape, because tho assessors employed don't know their business. The Minister in charge of the Valuation Department (-the Hon. Mr Mills), speaking to his constituents recently, said : '"Practically the whole of the colony had been revalued since the general levision in 1897. The cost of this had been heavy, but the work done would last for a long time. In 1900 the capital value of the lands of the. colony, with improvements, was £138,700,140, while in 1904- it had risen to £182,796,14-1. or an increase of over £44,000,000." There is no question about the increased valv.2 of land of late years; but what troubles tho ratepayers here is the inequitable distribution of the burden..