LAND AND LABOUR

Grey River Argus, 25 April 1911, Page 7

LAND AND LABOUR

INDIVIDUAL EARNINGS AND • PUBLIC EARNINGS. WHAT THE LAND AGENTS HAVE TO SAY. Land values are not produced by the individual labour, enterprise, and expenditure of the owners or occupiers of the land. All "values produced by 4he labour, enterprise, and expenditure of the individual owners or 1 occupiers of the land — all the values produced, in short, by fencing-, clearing, stumping, draining, ploughing, manuring, grassing^, building upon or otherwise improving and developing the land — are improvement values. They belong of right to the individual owner or occupier who has produced them, and ought no? 'to be taxed. Land values, on the other hand, are produced by the presence of the public and by public expenditure on public services, and therefore rightly belonging to ithe public as a whole, an intelligent open-minded STUDY OF REAL ESTATE ADVERTISEMENT^. whether in the newspapers or In the special circulars etc., issued by. land and estate agents, cannot fail to remove that doub*Taking at random, for'instance, the "New Zealand Times" for March 30 1 find, on the page devoted to real estate advertisements, such phrases as the following: — "Excellent property in. Heart of .business centre," "2-J- miles from railway station, creamery and school," "12 miles from good town," "Fielding district, P. 0., school and creamery 3 miles," railway station, and school 2£ miles,, creamery If mjles." "close to factory, school, store, post office/ "situatfi i'-mile from (P. 0., 'telephone bureau and school, 2£ miles from creamery, 4£ miles from railway station by level metal road," "8 miles from New Plymouth, I& to school' and creamery, on .good metalled road," "conveniently situated, only 2 miles from school and creamery," "school £-mife, creamery opposite; metalled road ; railway station 2 miles," "Manawatu line; very conveninet for Wellington milk supply; only two miles from railway station by level road, i-mile. fsom school, J-mile from creamery," "9 miles from Pahiatua iby good road, close to factory, creamery, school, 'etc.," "Main Trunk," "4 miles from Hohuratahi, and say 8 miles from Whangamomona on the Stratford-On-garue railway line," etc., etc. Ma'nfrfestly, ireal estate Advertisements are not peppered with such phrases for nothing. THEY HAVE TO BE PAID FOR, and at! fairly stiff rates. And the shrewd business men who pay for the real estate adverlisements insert such phrases because they well know that the value of the land they have to sell varies directly with the advantages of situation — nearness to a market, nearness to post offices, railway stations, schools, and such" like, and the greater the advantages they have to offer the greater is their chance of making a ,good deal. Read practically any issue of any paper containing- real estate advertisements and you can parallel the above quotations. But it is seldom one comes across such revealations as are contained in the tempting- column advertisements inserted* in ithe "New I Zealand Times" of March 30th and other dates by Messrs* McLauchlan and Co., of Blenheim, Marlborough. "Why not settle in the town of Blenheim, on the Wairau Plains?" they ask in big- well-displayed type. Then we are told, "Blenheim is the capital of Marlborough, in the middle of a very ricn 1 sheep-farming " and grain-growing district, eighteen miles by rail from Picton." "LARGE SHEEP RUNS KEPT TOWN BACK." It is true that "large sheep runs held »by a few owners so far 1 have kept the town .back," but "the majority of these runs are very suitable for subdivision, which will enable them ; to- support a • very large population and will increase the exports of the district fifty-fold"; and, of course, "a very large population" brings in. its train very large land values, and a fifty-fold increase of exports will still further enhance land values. Moreover, "in the. near future our present progressive Government will see that they are settled more rapidly by the people" so that land values will g-o up "more rapidly" than heretofore. 'Golden prospects are before Blenheim," say these shrewd advertisers, in an almost Tyrical outburst. "The river, on which the town is built, is to be made more navigable at a very small cost, so that far larger steamers^ than at present can come right upf o the town, and Blenheim will then be the port of Marlbbroug-hl Further, "the railway *■ is now built ■thirty-two miles south, and will soon be connected with Chfistchurch," and "a railway will soon run up the Wairau Valley, connecting with the.Midland line, and thus secure the whole of the "West Coast trade for Blenheim." . ■ • OUT UP LARGE ESTATES: OPEN UP GREAT FUTURE. In- short, "a great future : is to-day in front of the district, with the cutting- up of large estates, the opening up of the niver, and the pushing on of the railways .. . " "Any man can see that with half an eye," as tlie saying goes. And any man can see with" half an eye that the land- values thus - advertised for sale on private account .are really produced by the t presence, growth, prosperity and expenditure of the communty as a whole and. therefore rightly, • justly and properly belong — not to the individual landholders who have mot produced them, but to the whole community. We must have public revenues, and there are only two ways of raising such revenues — (1) the dishonest meth od now largely resorted ■ to, of taxing private earnings for. public pur-

poses, and (2) the only\ just and honest method, that of taking public earnings for public purposes. Isn't it about time that we abolished all the present robber rates and taxes and derived the whole of our public rev- . enues from the land values produced by, and therefore earned by the public as a whole? IF NOT, WHY NOT? Messrs McLauchlan and Co., I would point out in conclusion, give same excellent illustrations of the fact that the nearer the land is to the centre of population the greater is its value. Thus land "situated on the Picton-Blenheim railway, four miles from Blenheim, at the growing townshi pof Spring- Creek," and "within half a mile from a railway station and school," is offered at "£65 per acre for ten-acre lots"; while "residential.' sites — quarter acres close in to the town, and in a locality sure to go ahead," are offered at "£75 each" and "business sites," again, are offered at vanning prices per foot, according to the advantages of situation they command. Land in "Alfred street, 100 yds from Post Office, £12 10s per foot"; land in "Wynen street '£16 per foot"; and "three frontages next railway station" at "£3O per foot."' I think I may say with' Euclid "0-E..D.," which the irreverent used to translate at school as "quite easily done." ARTHUR WITHY.