Western Star And WALLACE COUNTY GAZETTE. Published Every Tuesday and Friday. TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 1922. LAND VALUATION METHODS.

Western Star, 21 March 1922, Page 2

Western Star And WALLACE COUNTY GAZETTE. Published Every Tuesday and Friday. TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 1922. LAND VALUATION METHODS.

The price of produce is down. The meat pool is proof of, that. Interest on money is high-two or three per cent, higher than it was a few yearn ago. Every horrower knows that. When prices are down and interest is up, land falls in value. Every settler knows that also, just as we all know that when prices were inflated and' abundance of money was in I circulation land' fetched boom values. These things axe interdependent, and effect each other" as unerringly aB the moon does the tides. If, then, this * admitted, why is it that land values are being steadily raised in the South Island and being lowered, or gf"f to £ lowered, in the North Island!? The North and South are'both Buffering from fie same thing-lov produce prices and high interest. The only explanation that occurs to us is that the Valuation Department is adjusting valuations, and, so far as the South is concerned, must be adjusting them in accordance' with some uu-

known rule of its own, a -rule which is manifestly in opposition to the, usual laws, if we may so call them, regulating ibe price of land. When produce prices are hjgh. there is always a demand for land, and the higher the prices the greater the demand, ana, vice versa, (when, stock is not a'pay able proposition, there is no demand for land. It may be cheap, but people do not want it. iThey Enow that land is worth only what it will "produce. The Valuation Department, knows this as well as anybody; then why dues it raise values when there is no brisk demand? .It may object and say that for years values have been too low. If that is accepted, then it can be justly censured for laxity, and one is justified in Baying that it has no right to make good past omissions, if there were omissions—and we do not contend there were—during a time wnen it is obvious, even to the most unthinking, that land values have fallen. These 'remarks are sug-

gested by a note contained in a budget of news from our Nightcaps correspondent. From that note we Bather that land values have been raised at the 'Caps, and this means '.» rise ill land tax. Artificially *«* values are jast about as bad as the lvalues created by inflated prices during a war period. All public borrowing is based on? the land values, and inflated values simply means overborrowing. Therein lies the danger. We know of one case, a small one ■ it is true, but an actual case, where i last year the value of a small piece ! of land was increased 100 per cent., and thia at a time when the market values had made a rapid decline. Take the case of the North Island. In the Waikato and' Taranaki people bought land on mortgage during the war period, and now they cannot meet their obligations. Be it said , that many of the mortgagees generously met the mortgagors, but that afforded only a partial relief. What hampered the farmers was their high values. They hadi noßody but themselves to blame because they bought ; in at those values, and during the /war the land was probably worth I the money. But now, owing to the

causes mentioned at the* commencement of this article, and which «nouJd' have been foreseen, they are face to face with rate and tax bills wb,ich they cannot pay. In their dilemma they appealed to the Gov-

ernment, which sent the Valuer up—what for? Manifestly to revise the valautions. Whether he has lowered them has not yet transpired; but the question is this—Ato the valuations of the North Island going to be lowered at the expense of those of the South Island? If the North Island promoted a landi boom, and some people made lots of money out of it, is it right that the more cautious and careful South Islander should be called upon to pay for the shortsightedness of those who thought more of speculation than of production? Assuredly it is not, and if the diagnosis of the position is as Btated, it is ample evidence that the Dominion is without a scientific system of land valuation. Without that theTe cannot be stability, and with great fluctuations, such as have been experienced recently, crises must inevitably occur in times of finaucial sitress, not to mention the burden placed on the producer when production is not as remunerative as it should be.