RATING ON UEIMPLOYED VALUES.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 30 October 1912, Page 3

RATING ON UEIMPLOYED VALUES.

(To the Editor.) Sir.— I have been away ironi home and have only just .seen Mr James I'rouso's letter in your issue of the llitli inst. After a careful perusal of that letter I can only conclude (1) that Mr lVonse is .stinlying the rating on unimproved values standing on liis head or (-) that, with consummate impudence, lie is endeavouring to persiuide the ratepayers of Levin to take an absolutely upside-down view ol the question. Wo tar from having undertaken to teach our ratepayers the are of getting honelits without earning them." my object is to show the ratepayers of Levin H) he gross injustice of taxing private minings by levying the rates of Lovin on houses, shops, lactones and other improvements: (-) the lolly of allowing land speculators to appropriate the increased land values created and earned by. and I herein re rightly belonging to the people of Levin as a whole: and (~,\) t he justice juid wisdom of abolishing all rates on private earnings and of taking public earnings, and public earnings alone, for public purposes.

Tlit l sequel to Prou.se s story about the liees only emphasises the .justice ami the wisdom of reasinn to tax the working bees (the improvers). and of prevent inn any bees tiikiiur honey without- working lor it : and this is exactly the principle underlying tlie r:itinu of unimproved values. hand speculators are either drones from the bc.ninuinjr or working bees wlirv s 'fimlinix liotiev that they can take without working for it fairly no mad after it"--so mad after it that fliey think that their speculation is quite legitimate and a positive benefit instead of a nrevious injury to J .he connnunity as a whole. At their worst- stane. as Mr Prouse so graphically puts it. "tliev won't work: mud thev soon learn to steal the other bees' lioney : it is the easiest tliins: to teach them to steal, and once they learn nothing will break them of it.'' Tn fact, they feel that they lun'c a '"vested ri<xht" to steal ami brand -is "confiscation spoliation nn<l robbery" any proposal to put a stop to their stealing - any pro- ] posal to confiscate their power of confiscation. For the rest. Mr Pronso's loiter. wliPre not unintelligible is irrelevant. and no ratepayer who is making anything like a proper use of Ins land-no ratepayer whose improvements are equal to or nreater in value than his land lias anything to fear from tin' l itnratintr of improvements and the rating of unimproved values instead.--Yours very truly. ART HO WITH V. (■oldie's 15rae. Wellington. ' October "-''itli. 1!)12.