LAND VALUES AND LIVING STANDARDS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 119, 10 August 1927, Page 16

LAND VALUES AND LIVING STANDARDS

THE FARMER PAYS REVALUATION CRITICISED (THE SUN'S Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Tuesday. T AND values, imaginery and real, with a few suggestions upon farmers’ problems generally, were comprehensively treated in the House of Representatives to-night by Mr. A. Hamilton, Wallace, who stressed his theory that the standard of living in any country must not be higher, and need not be lower than that experienced by the producers of its national wealth. Revaluation would not affect the value of land, he said, during the course of his speech in the debate on the Financial Statement. It would perhaps relieve some of those, who are in good financial position, of their rates, but it would destroy the credit of those who require financial assistance. New Zealand’s national wealth could be considered to be in primary produce, as 95 per cent, of our exports were from the land, so that the standard of living in New Zealand, must not be higher or need not be lower than that experienced by our primary producers. The standard of living meant working conditions and profits, and those who said that falling land value meant increased production were playing into the hands of the speculators. “We are living too much among the theories of the past and these require remodelling,” he said. “Falling land values must be a contraction of the margin of cultivation. During the past few years unoccupied and abandoned lands have increased. Decreased valuation has put them out of cultivation. Returned soldiers’ lands have dropped about 25 per cent, in value and if other occupied land dropped similarly the loss to the landowners of New Zealand would approximate £BO millions. Even granting that peak prices were too high and cutting this figure in half, he would say that investors in land had suffered a loss of £4O millions through depreciation of assets. Mr. Hamilton divided land values into intrinsic and investment values, and declared that farmers to-day were worse off than before the war. “The farmer gets only what is left after everyone else in the community has taken what they want,” he said.