PUBLIC OPINION

Waikato Times, Volume 131, Issue 21758, 18 June 1942, Page 4

PUBLIC OPINION

CURRENT VIEWPOINTS LOCAL BODY REVENUE (To the Editor) } Sir, —In reference to hospital and I . other local body revenue, there is) plenty potentially available when the j f rational and just policy is adopted.! . Speaking at Gisborne, the Minister! of Health, the Hon. A. H. Nordmeyer. i I suggested mat a limit might be hxect: for local bod:,« contributions for hospitals to Id in the £ on the un-; > improved value. This seemed to j . j meet with general approval there. ! i but I suggest that the matter should j ? | be taken lo its logical and equitable I conclusion. The Minister was right in taking the social rental value (unimproved, so-called) as the basis, since this is a! purely community-created value, and the community is entitled to the full; annual amount. The Mayor of Gisc borne, Mr N. H. Bull, told the Min- - ister that the hospital rate in the ■ borough of Gisborne amounted to 37 per cent of the total general rate on the unimproved value. What he did , not tell the Minister was the propor--1 tion of the hospital rate to the total ; market site value of Gisborne. A correspondent *to the Gisborne . Herald, basing his figures on histori- . cal and court records, states that r certain sections in Gisborne were ; bought for £sl originally, and that their present site value alone is £lO,- • 000. It follows that on a single ' quarter-acre section of that value, the Gisborne Borough Council could collect another 5 per cent., or £SOO per annum, since selling value is reckoned after all existing rates and taxes have been allowed for. Better still, disregard relling value altogether, and simply collect socially the full annual site value, as the private social rent collectors now do. This, by the way, is part of the policy of the Malvern Conference, upon which the economic side of the proposed Christian order is based, 1 out my advocacy is from the rational 1 and equitable standpoint alone. Only ; ignorance of social economics, or ’ downright hypocritical humbug, holds up this obviously desirable reform.— I am, etc., i T. E. McMILLAN. Matamata, June 17