The New Zealand Times. THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 1920. KEEPING IT DARK

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10612, 10 June 1920, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 1920. KEEPING IT DARK

The astounding fact that tho latest “Official Year Book” contains absolutely no information whatsoever in regard to the manner in which tho unimproved land value of New Zealand,—“the communal value,” as Mr Asquith terms it—is distributed amongst tho various classes of landholders in the Dominion, is ono that calls for more than mere passing mention. Pages 506 to 513, inclusive, of tho “Year Book” give a number of tables showing in considerable detail—(l) “tho numbers of holdings and percentages of holdings in occupation in groups of sizes, as returned at the past fivo collections,” those for 1911, 1916, 1917, 1918, and 1919; (2) “the areas of holdings in occupation by size-groups, and the percentage each group represents of the total area in occupation”; (3) “occupied lands —percentages of increase or decrease of numbers and areas' of holdings by size-groups”; (4) “tho numbers and average areas of holdings for each county in the Dominion” ; and (5) “tenure of occupied lands.” Why similar facts and figures are not given showing how tho unimproved value of the. laud is held in corresponding value-groups is, ns Lord Dundreary would eay, “a thing that no fellah can understand.” Unless, of course, it is because of the no ddubt well-founded anxiety of the Reform party to conceal from the people of New Zealand tho very unequal manner in which the land value* of the country are distributed.

This is the more likely in view of tho fact that throughout his minority Premiership—that is to say, from 1912 to date—Mr Massey has steadily set his face against the bringing up to date of Return B 17A, 1907, which contains just the sort of information required. The Prime Minister’s excuse has always been that tho preparation of the return would he a very expensive business. And, even when in 1917, at the instance of Air W. A. Vcitch, M.P., the House of Representatives called for a return showing merely the areas and the unimproved and capital values of tho land hold by the various value-group* under £3OO unimproved value, between £SOO and £3OOO unimproved value, and above £SOOO unimproved value, Air Alassey, again on the score of expense, evaded the' production of the return. This, though it is wellnigh inconceivable that the statistics called for were not already in the hands—nay, at the very finger-ends—-of the officials of the 'Land Tax Department; £SOO being, of course, the exemption limit, below which no land tax is payable, and £SOOO the point above which tho graduated land tax became payable. In 1907 the unimproved value of the land of New Zealand was £149,682,000. According to the latest “Alonthly Abstract of Statistics,” it was in 1910 no la* than £275,812,000—an increase in tho twelve years of £120,130,000. Tho people of New Zealand have, moat certainly, a right to know into whoso pockets has gone that 126 millions sterling of unimproved values, representing what tho great British economist, John Stuart Alill, would have called an “unearned increment” of considerably more than ten miljiona a year. But, of course, both John Stuart Alill and Adam Smith, a still greater economist, held that such land values constitute a peculiarly appropriate source of State revenue; nncl, as Air Alassey desires, above all things, to prevent anything like a substantial increase' of tho land tax, it is no doubt not without very good reason that no does his utmost to conceal how very peculiarly appropriated, how very unequally divided, tho land values of tho Dominion nro.

Air Alassey, wo fully expect, will want to know what all the funs is about, seeing that the “Year Book” gives such detailed information as to tho areas in which the land is hold. But Air Alassey knows—none bettor, indeed—that value, not area, is tho true measure of land. An acre of land in Wellington is worth two square miles or more in the hackhlockn. Indeed, every foot of tho land sold rc-

cently in this city at £SOO a foot is worth from two to three acres 'at the least of the very best Taranaki dairying land. Not only as a measure of the extent to which land is monopolised, is land value, therefore, a far mors reliable guide than acreage, or even square-mileage; hut the unimproved value of the laud affords also an abundant and peculiarly appropriate (source of State revenue. Further, a substantial tax upon land values will do more than any other constitutional moans can possibly do to foroc tho big land monopolists to let go their fell grip, and thus open up the laud to the returned soldiers and other would-be settloni. Yet tho latest “Official Year Book,” we repeat, contains absolutely no information whatsoever in regard to the manner in which the unimproved land values of this country are distributed amongst the various classes of landholders. The previous “Year Cook” contained only the most meagre information on the matter, and gave absolutely no information of the kind of a later date than 1910, when the unimproved value of the land was £175,280,000, as against last year’s £275,812,000 —no information whatever to show where that 100 millions and more of “communal value” or “unearned increment” has gone! More, than a hint as to where such values gq was, however, given—quite unintentionally, of course—by Sir James Allen (then the Hon. James Alien) in, his Budget speech of August oth, 1914. Statistics quoted by Sir James Allen on that occasion show that in tho five years 1908-9 to 191314 the unimproved value of the land increased by £51,612,000, and that of thin “large accretion,” as ho termed, it, £25,747,000, or very nearly half, went into the pockets of the 6148 holders of land over £SOOO unimproved value. Wc may very safely assume, therefore, that of the more than £100,000,000 increase in land values since 1910, at least £50,000.000, has gone into the pockets of,the 6000 to 7000 holders of land over £SOOO unimproved value. At 5 per cent, this means an annual rental value of £2,500,000. So that, even assuming that these big land monopolists paid the whole of the land tax.—which, of course, they do not—this increased annual value since 1910 would pay their land tax for them each year, and leave them, in addition, a nice little war bonus of £1,000,000 per annum! Small wonder that when, from tho Reform point of view, the position is so damning, Air Alassey prefers to keep it dark.