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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3005, 11 February 1881, Page 2

The Board of Reviewers appear to have set themselves heartily to work to cut down the valuations of properties in the county of Waipawa. Judging from what was done there, and also in Napier, we should think it must have been painful to the Board that none of the eighteen objectors in the Hawke's Bay County put in an appearance. Thus that portion of this property tax district remains at the valuation of the assessors, the Reviewers never having had the opportunity of showing their desire to reduce assessments. The reductions that were made in the valuation of the Borough of Napier amounted to about £5000; but in tbe Waipawa County there was a larger field, and the Reviewers boldly reduced tbe valuations against which there were objections by no less a figure than £40,000. There was no mincing of matters. Tbe Deputy Property Tax Commissioner's entreaties, and the tears and lamentations of the miserable assessors were disregarded ; down came the valuations. It almost seemed as if the Reviewers had been appointed by a beneficent Government to undo the inhuman acts of the assessors, and to show owners of property that the tax would be made as light as possible. AndnowthewholeCounty pretty well is " crying over spilled milk," and settlers who did not object to their valuations are vainly blaming themselves for not having protested against tbe assessments put on their properties. We understand that the principle upon which the Reviewers went was that the value of a landed estate could only be estimated by tbe number of sheep running on the ground. A cast-iron rule of this sort would, of course, take no consideration ot situation, soil or acreage, nor of the number of sheep which an estate under good management ought to carry. A true valuation taking these matters into account would distinguish the difference in value between an estate of 5000 acres of shingle-bed carrying 2000 sheep, and an estate near a railway station of good soil and of tbe same area upon which no larger flock was kept. But if wbat we bear be true, the Board of Reviewers treated all estates alike. We have been told of one case in which the owner of an estate objected to his valuation of £9 per acre, having estimated it himself at £6. The Reviewers kindly reduced it to £5 per acre. An adjoining neighbor's "land, of worse quality, remains at £9, because, being satisfied with the valuation, he entered no objection. Thus the property tax is a farce. The Act is a ridiculous mass of verbiage from the first word of the preamble to the last; it is thoroughly unworkable, and it seems whatever is done by an expensive machinery for the valuation of property is promptly undone by a Board of Reviewers.