CURRENT TOPICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6281, 12 September 1898, Page 3

CURRENT TOPICS.

Mr Chamberlain must •tcdas often have been mod* unjoe. comfortable by references to the opinions that he used to express in his radical days, and his inconsistency has furnished matter for many jokes. The last of these is as elaborate as it is ingenious, and as clever as it is cutting. A protty litcle volume has been issued under the title, " The Chamberlain Birthday Book." which seems tdbe nothing mors than one of those repertoires of wit and wisdom dedicated nowadays by diligent, if indiscreet, admirers to the object of their affections. The use of such volumes is to find opposite the date of one's birth some such extract ;is " Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue." In this case, the quotations I are taken from Mr Chamberlain's speeches, at least, from those which he made before he was a Conservative Cabinet Minister. In looking through it one starts with Fanuary. Here is an example : — - Jan. 14 — Lord Lansdowne (135,517 acres), bom 1845. " The rights of property have been so much extended that the rights of the community have almost altogether disappeared, and it is hardly too much to say that the prosperity and the comfort and the liberties of a great proportion of the population have been laid at the feet of a small number of proprietors, who 'neither toil nor spin.'" -Hull, August 5, 1885. Of course, from the point of view of the Tory, the whole thing, is a. cruel kind of joke, indeed, one journal characterises it as. indecent. It is curious to find, for instance, under Nov. 7, the day of Lord Rothschild's birth, the quotation from. Mr Chamberlain's speech at .Birmingham, in 1895: — "What ransom will property pay for the security it enjoys'/" Perhaps, however, the most mischievous citation of them all is from a Victoria YTnll speec^ •. — Oct 13 — Mi* John Cade martvred. " Knowing, as I do, of what Toiy misrepresentation is capable. T n.ti inclined to think that Jnok Cade was on ill-used and much misunderstood gentleman, who happened to have a sympathv with tiie poor and the oppressed, and who therefore was made the mark for the malignant liatred of the aristocratic and landowning classes, who combined to burlesque his opinions and to put him out of the' way." The first sentence of that extract is unkind pnough for anything ; but some people seem to live for the^sblp purpose of causing other people . eipbartiaspment. . In this case, the victim hnvpen's-to be a prominent politician who, in the discharge of , his public functions has probably endeavoured to live up to Mr Tviiskhi's convenient view that truth is so many-sided that it is impossible to tell it all without contradicting oneself many times. ■ The report just presented the land : of to Parliament by the Valuerthe coixtyv.- General contains a quantity . of interesting information concerning the' lands of the colony, which deserves wider publicity than it is likely to receive through 'the medium cf an official paper.) vln his. introductory remarks, Mr John M'Gbwan attempts, to. give some idea of :the;aniouht of work involved in the pre-paration-of the returns -demanded from his department. It has been necessary, he says, for the assessment of 1898 to make some 231,965 separate valuations, of which 119,258 are in the/North Island and 112,707 in the South Island. These, together, represent an increase of 23,506 since the assessment of 1891. Each valuation includes a large number of "particulars, such as details of improvements under separate headings, which must require much time and considerable ability to collect, and it is not surprising to learn that the cost has been heavy. With regard to the incidents of the valuation Mr M'Gowan says that the number of objections was no greater than in former years, but more difficulty was experienced in holding the sittings of the Assessment Courts, owing to the engagements of magistrates preventing a sequence of sittings, such as was obtainable when objections were heard before reviewers. The Valuer-General states that much "diffei-ence of opinion has been expressed by interested people with regard to the Department's system of valuing improvements, and that in some cases its action has been misrepresented. In many instances owners have sought to claim, as a deduction from the capital value, the amount originally expended on improve* ments, instead cf the value of the improvements at the date of the valuation, and thus reduce the unimpi'oved value to a figure much less than the present selling value of the land, excluding improvements. When, under the Property Assessment Act, taxation was levied on the value of

the land, including improvements, the values placed upon the latter were, accord- | ing to Mr M'Gowan, very small indeed compared with the values now sought to j be placed on the same classes of improvements. The total unimproved value of the lands of the colony is set down at £84,401,244, and the value of improvements at £54,190,103, the two sums making a total of £138,591,347. This is an increase of £16,366,318— t0 which the North Island has contributed! £14,239,837, and the South Island £2,126,481 — upon the valuation of 1891.