The Guardian (And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times.) TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 1924. COMMUNITY CREATED VALUES.

Hokitika Guardian, 18 March 1924, Page 2

The Guardian (And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times.) TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 1924. COMMUNITY CREATED VALUES.

The Tauniarunui Borough Council has been circulating local bodies advocating that the towns should derive the benefit of all enhanced value in land, for the reason that the increase is created bv the community as a whole. This is an. advanced phase of socialism which is sure to find favor in many quarters, but which on examination will prove a very unfair and inequitable procedure. The Government of the day has been busy of late giving the people the opportunity of acquiring the freehold. The “freeholders” in Parliament are in the majority, the “leaseholders” being in a hopeless minority. In that circumstance it is not likely the request of the northern Council will receive legislative effect. The Government with one hand having afforded facilities for obtaining the freehold, could not with tile other hand take it away. But even that extreme action is not improbable. After nil the value of the freehold is in the keeping of the Government, and in these days of radical legislation it is not safe to say what the freehold will be worth in a decade or two. Even the present Government lias made its depredations on the value of the freehold by putting an embargo on the standing timber on land. The timber may not be sold for export. The timber may be chopped down and burned, but the commodity may not be converted into economic value by sale to a sawmiller for export! That raid on the freehold principle by a Government which stands for the freehold is one of the inconsistencies to which polities seem prone these days. But as to community created values in towns where areas are necessarily restricted, it is a

questions of how much of the enhanced value is due to measured increment from situation, and how much to the energy, enterprise and foresight of the section owner. An aggregation of population necessarily creates value, hut the aggregation of people is brought about only by the enterpri.se of the industrialists constituting tho backbone of the community who by the expenditure of capital establish mdustiy which provides employment. Were that enterprise not entered upon the occasion for tho town would not arise. ’1 lie growth of any place is gorerned by the enterprise of its citizens in providing avenues for trade and industry which find employment for the many. Yet these creators of wealth are to have their reward taken from them and handed over to the community as a whole—if the Taiimariinui principle is to ho brought into operation, ft is the kind of socialism which would lead to stagnation in tho end. Folk would flock to the more fortunate centres where the community was deriving the greatest benefit from the community values, which would moan tho depletion of other less prosperous towns, and a rush of the people from the country to the towns because living conditions for the moment would he easier. It is conceivable that in a very brief time the attempt to upset the law of supply and demand would result disastrously, and it would be difficult to retrace the false steps, and re-estaldish tho old order again. Rather should it he, as we believe it is, the effort of the civic councils to encourage development and the creation of prospering centres where population will he attracted and engaged in useful industrial pursuits. That policy would tend to the benefit ol the many, lor the prosperity would he reflected in radiating waves over a wide section. A policy to keep community values within the narrow limits of a municipality would result in diminishing personal effort, and roll enterprise of its legitimate reward. It would he worse than setting hack the clock of progress—it would stop the clock altogether.