LAND. PRICES IN WELLINGTON.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 66, 11 December 1907, Page 4

LAND. PRICES IN WELLINGTON.

Jv 1 "CliHstchuroh;'December 10. Iho Rev. J. J. North holds some very, strong opinions on .the subject'.of laii'd prices, in Wellington, and lie.has been expressing some of them to the "Times," notably jvitli regard to tho Hon. T. K. Macdonald's Tcceut utterances'* on the question. Mr. North is proild of Wellington. " The place," he says, "is a (oriic, hut it has its problems'. All the smooth talk in the world will not persuade.' the rent-payer of. Wellington, and, in a lesser' degree, of other New Zealand cities, .that things are well. Things promise to become so rank in regard to land values that the central economic problem will be fiercely dealt with in the capital city. In Wellington there is a very largo number, of houses that are sub-divided. The number of householders who are compelled to take in boarders in order to eke out an-.existeneo on wages which are depleted by huge rents is larger still. Kennedy Macdonald has gono to. some pains to pooh-pooh these statements.. Mr. Kennedy Macdonald's words on'the land question are those of a deeply-interested-party, and I do not think that they have a sound spot in them. The number of men who make money in Wellington while they sleep is very great. They make far more' than the most industrious classes in the community. I have no figures to quote from,, but I may say that at Miramar the. unimproved values iliavo gone up, I believe, irom. £50,000 to £80,000 in. fifteen years. It is folly, for tho democracy to allow the unearned increment' to drop into the pouch of a few in such rich profusion, and it will'soon end.. Mr, Kennedy Macdonald is the champion of the existing order. He. has run land syndicate schemes as far out as Tawa, twelve miles from the, city. The land prices in tho lieusuburbs 'of Wellington . would raise southerners', hair. The result, of this kind of thing is that sections are very small. The problem consequently will rapidly ripen. Tho national configuration counts for something, but that which counts for most is land gambling, which has been in evidcnco in Wellington for many years." .