LAND VALUES.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 12979, 19 May 1906, Page 3

LAND VALUES.

A MINISTERIAL WARNING. At a social function which took place in Welington on Wednesday the Minister of Lands said that there v.iy a feature of the land question he -wished io refer to, and he did not know whether it was to the benefit of all concerned. He alluded to the boom which had fcikou place in land, especially around during the last three or four ye;'.:--, lie thought it was a great- injury U> ;ill concerned, because the land had be«.-n boomed far and awuy bsyond its hitriiisl.- value. Wages hud been increased, but- the wage earners iouud that they were- :k> better off than before the increase. On vvery addition to the wages up went tit- price of land and up went the cost of and conveniences, so that they were hardly any better off, and the land-bi.oming syndicates had scooped in the money. They talked about stopping the operations of combines, but he wished to heaven uhey would da something with these land-booming syndicates. He believed ir. wuid be a goodthing for the colony if they were brought to their series in .svnse uvy, because it seeniad to him that en::, placer they got their hands on they banned it up to such an extent that people induced to buy under the belief that they would never get such another chance in their lives. Mr Duncan gave an illustration. He remembered, he said, about fifteen or sixteen years ago, Melbourne w;is in the very same position. The Hon. M. Holmes, M.L.C., had a property in Melbourne at that time, and being offered a first-class price, he sold it for £BOOO. In two weeks it was sold for £16,000, and a fortnight later it was sold for £24,000. " Yes," said Mr Holmes when talking about it, " that's all very well. It's all on paper. I got my money and I am all right." (Laughter.) Mr Duncan went on to say that he would like to see them come to their senses a little about this land boom, because when land or any other article was boomed up to three or four times its values, there ought to be some means of stopping it. What, he asked, was the good of increased wages if they all went in house rent or conveniences! (Applause.) For his owe part, he thought that it was time this matter of syndicates was looked into to see if some arrangement could be made by which it would not be carried to a much greater extent that at present. With regard to land in the country the position was nearly the same. The last time he was in the south he fell in with an old friend. He asked him how he was getting on. "Oh fine," he replied. 'I have just let my farm. I am going to live quietly now." He (Mr Duncan)) /wked him what he let it for, suggesting £1 an acre. "Nearly twa," said his friend, adding that he had let it for £1 17s 6d an acre, the tenant to pay the taxes. " That's more than ' twa,*" replied Mr Duncan, and he added he believed it was. That, he went on to say, was too much for land near a town to leave a man a fair margin for .his work, and he feared that many places, even in Taranaki, had been let at too high a price in the same way. Some of it was boomed np to £3O an acre and even higher, and a man who went dairying, even on exceptionally good land at that price, had a pretty hard row to hoe. There was no doubt about that, and he believed that, as .far as possible, the Government should find for the people. (Applause.) He was beginning to be frightened, he went on to say, that the land boom in Wellington and the suburbs would spread to the country, and the Government ought- to be very guarded as to the price it paid for land for settlement, because he would be sorry to think the Government should purchase land at a price which would hang a millstone round any man's neck for 999 years. (Laughter and applausfc)' It would be better to avoid them than to buy them at a price which would not enable the tenants to make ai fair living. He knew that the Land Purchase Board was using all the wisdom and intelligence it possessed in that direction, and he believed the Government would succeed in getting the land for the people in the future as it had in the past. If the Government did that, he knew the country would be satisfied: Referring finally to the Cheviot Estate, the Minister remarked on the fact that it was. acquired by the Government owing to? "the fact that th<f owners objected tq the valuation put upon it, and said he would like to ssee a great deafrjnore done in that way. He thought theyfonght to .revert to that which was in vogofe at that tame, and that the Governmeir,should acquire land at an increase of xu per cent, if the owners objected to the Taluatton placed upon it. (Applause.) feome remarks on the subject of inflated' .TS T? *"#* the Hon - T. K. MacH tefore proceeding with a sale of i «? ,0 * ert r ' m his finn's auction rooms in Wellington on.Tuesday. . Mr Macdonald « S?I _L a - fc a greafc , * eal of the excessive va- I were complained of in connection with', property in the Wellington district had arisen through the speculative building mania and the absolute indifference to what he might call ordinary decent business methods. A system of barter had grown up during the. last three years, and it had only one effect—viz., that of placing fictitious values upon properties, and so swell-! rag the real value of every property in every street in the city and suburbs, and in many cases giving fictitious values also to country properties. In some cases which had come before him he had found conntry settlers rejoicing in having sold their farms at 150 per cent, above their real value to town speculators, who on their jparfc ?re rubbing their hands at haviug gcr ' vice the value of the town properties !■""* ;-h they had exchanged for the country I properties. It was almost a pity, Mr Maci donald added, that the Government did not itake steps to bring those kind of transactions to an exd, because they simply dej ceived the public as to the real value of I landed estate.