The Globe. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1879.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1538, 22 January 1879, Page 2

The Globe. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1879.

The Laud Tax Act came into force on the first day of the year, and with the advent of 1879 the income of a good many people may ho said to have been reduced by a half-penny in the pound on tho capital value of all laud owned by them over tho value of £SOO, minus the value of improvements. Valuers and their assistants, we find, have lately been appointed, and are hard at work. They are seen “ here, there, and everywhere,” busily engaged in spying the nakedness of tho laud, as it were, with a view of trying to arrive at some sort of conclusion regarding objections, which may he made in duo course of,time, to the assessment they are concocting. Whether their tips ” will prove palatable to the majority of property-holders, or otherwise remains to ho seen. Wo fancy, however, that, hastily got up, as this valuing scheme has been, and notoriously crude as the Laud Tax Act has, so far, been shown to be, there will ho many shrieks hoard throughout tho land when tho appellate Courts are open to receive protests rrom tho taxoes. It is but natural that tho movements of those numerous valuers, who are just now overrunning tho laud like so many locusts, should attract some attention. Their domiciliary visits, it must bo said, are made under a special provision of the Act, which requires that owners and occupiers of property shall reply to tho queries of those officials, who are empowered “ to enter at any time during the dag upon laud or promises, for tho purpose of rating the same,” and furthermore, “ to put to the occupier or owner thereof any question they may deem fit, touching any of the particulars they are required to furnish in their valuation lists.” And hero the now law is stringent enough, in all conscience, as to the punishment which will be meted out to the 'neglectful, ignorant, or obstructive. Any person obstructing a valuer iu tho performaucoof his duty, or refusing,or wilfully neglecting to answer his questions, or giving false or evasive answers, renders himself liable to penalty of not moio than £SO. Looking over tho Act, wo find that its clauses are as complex if not altogether inexplicable —as they are numerous. Lot alone tho fact that not one person in a thousand over had an opportunity of reading it, its mysterious verbosity is such as to puzzle the brains of law-bred people oven. Wo have italicised tho words " during the i!aj, and here, at tho outset, a question may at once be raised as to what the term implies. Whether the word “ day ” refers to tho solar illumination ot the firmament, or to any traditional interpretation of tho diurnal term, it will be for Law Courts, probably, to decide. Tho course adopted by tho now Land Tax Department of seeking information from property owners, is a peculiarly complicated one. Printed forms, filled to overflowing with queries of a most teehcjcal and let ns say political

character, have boon posted by the laud tax valuers to each individual whom they have discovered as the owner of real property, whether in foe simple or under lease. The items sot out in those forms bear indeed an appalling look. Questions after questions are put; Hues after lines of printed matter, embodying some curiously novel kind of queries, meet the eye of the perplexed property-holder. Any attempt at digesting, sorting, or understanding oven, the real purport of the literary cross-examination which the sheet contains cannot fail, in the majority of cases, to render confusion worse confounded in the mind of him who peruses it with a candid desire to do his duty to the State and at the same time to escape the £SO penalty which stares him in the face. Wo do not hesitate to say that the contents of these forms are so seriously involved and so absurdly worded as to thoroughly puzzle any but professionally educated men who have made a special study of the Act. Those forms, by the bye, are not even framed from the dicta of the Act itself, but from some regulations which subsequently appeared in the Government Gazette , a production which but few people get, and scarcely any over take the trouble to investigate when it reaches their letter bags. The most interesting question, perhaps, which the valuers put to their victims in this marvellously drawn document is that in which the Now Zealand colonist is asked to state —under the £SO penalty, of course, if ho makes a single mistake in his reply—in what “ District, county, road board district, town, or borough ” his property lies. Political education in this colony will have to march apace without much loss of time, otherwise court bailiffs will reap quite a golden harvest of fines and penalties, and even assist in filling the gaols. Furthermore, the owner or occupier is compelled to describe at length the nature of his interest in lands in his possession. The mystic description of the following sentence stands forth as a Medusa’s head to petrify his understanding in the process : —“ Every person entitled to any land liable to duty under the Act, partly in one and partly in another or others of the foregoing ways,” shall do this, that, and the other. Like a conundrum, we give it up. And doubtless most people will do likewise. Again the martyrised property-holder is called upon to state “ the variety and quality ” of his land, as well as the capital value of the landed estate.” Artistic accountants, let alone lawyers and professors of natural philosophy, will have to be retained by the wretched taxees for the express purpose of replying to these physiological and mathematical queries. These forms sent by the valuers are accompanied by a peremptory injunction that they must be returned within something like a week, otherwise the majesty of the law, it is implied, will have to bo vindicated by that tormenting process which can compel blighted defendants in the law courts to open their purse strings to the tune of £SO and costs. What heart-burnings and pious ejaculations will bo heard in the revising courts when the outcome of this hodge-podge kind of legislation is brought for final settlement there may well bo imagined. Lawyers, we understand, are awaiting “ developments ” with keen interest.