LAND TAX VALUATIONS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5685, 19 June 1879, Page 3

LAND TAX VALUATIONS.

TO; THE EDITOR OF TUB NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sib, —I cannot understand upon what principle the; land tax valuators have proceeded. It seems that they have taken 'as their base line the time recently in the colony,, when nearly every one got as delirious about land as they did of yore with the South Sea bubble. Shrewd speculators' during the last two or three years bought a 640-acra block, in almost unexplored bush, at £1 an acre. Then they sent surveyors to stick in pegs all through, and it was- called a township, and some grand name given to it. Grand lithographed plans were plentifully distributed, and the sale liberally advertised; and the result was that the quarter-acre subdivisions were sold at from £lO to £SO a section to eager purchasers, who bought, as they said, to provide for their families in future time. And a moat splendid provision they have made in most cases, The land bubble has burst, as was inevitable, and brought embarrassment and distress to many ;< but no one would ever hare dreamed that the time when land bore an •' absurdly fictitious value should be made the ground of a national Valuation, or, more properly speaking, if persevered in, wholesale confiscation. Taking the Beach in Wellington—land that was bought ten years ago at £ls a foot has been valued at from £BO to £IOO a foot. Now, what is there to justify this valuation? Both as a tenant and as a landlord in the locality for the last fourteen years, I know that no retail shopkeeper can afford to pay a ground rent of more than £SO a foot in value. Occupying, say, 20ft., the ground rent alone is £IOO ; then there is the. building, worth, say, £IOOO ; and taxes, insurance, &c. It has been said,

but surely only as a joke, that the valuators would have rated much more moderately but that owners objected, as it would make the extent of their mortgages absurd. Anynow, it seems to me that whoever valued, unless acting from special instructions, has done much like Captain Cuttle in valuing old Sol’s mathematical instruments, —given way a good deal to speculative imagination.—l am, &c , Poxekean.