RATING ON UNIMPROVED VALUE.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 25, 29 July 1895, Page 2

RATING ON UNIMPROVED VALUE.

TO TIIE EDITOR OF THE STAR. Sir, —There are two sides to every question, and I do not think your correspondent Geo. Wilk.s has veiy clearly given his opinion ou 'ho abuvo i questiou. He hao made no attempt to prove any of his assertions. Several farmers about Colyton have complained bitteily to me that every improvement they made merely meant heavier rates, aud declared their in tention of spending not a penny more than they could help while the present law was in force. The samo thing oust cause farmers all over the colony to postpone needed improvements aud account for some, at least, of our un employed. I boliove the Bill if passed will benefit ever) industrious and improvhvf settler in the colony. Should it become law settlers will no longer feel, as they do now, that every day's labor, and every shilling epont, on building, fencing, or otherwise im proving their sections will ruoan heavier rates at the next assessmeut. Thus the farmers will go on improving and spending money in labor on their sections, laborers and tradesmen of all kinds will have greater spending power, the unemployed will be absorbed, storekeepers and merchants will do an increased trade, and all classes will benefit. The present rating on improvements ia a tax on, and a cheek to, improvements, deny it who can, aud how this can benefit either capitalist or laborer, or anybody but ihe idle settler or the speculator, I can't seo. The depression which is, I hope, now passing away is clearl}' attributable, in my opinioa, to the fiuancial disasters that recoutly overtook our fellow colonists in Australia, and that we have escaped so comparatively lightly should give us further confidence iv our own fertile aud favored country. I am, etc., T. West. Colyton, July 26th, 1895.