EOAD DISTRICT VALUATIONS.

Southland Times, Issue 1646, 11 October 1872, Page 3

EOAD DISTRICT VALUATIONS.

■ — ♦ (TO THE EDITOE OP THE TriTES.) Sib, — There being considerable discussion amongst settlers in Southland at the present moment in regard to the manner in which the annual value of land to let can be arrived at, and having given the matter some consideration, I would a9k a corner in your paper for a few ideas. 1 have recently heard men express the opinion that land occupied in small farms was of almost no annual value to let ; that settlers made no rent ; that there is no precedent to go by or data to work upon ; and that the rate should be put upon the acreage and not upon the annual value First then as to the annual value to let. Let us suppose that a shepherd has saved £650, which he has lent upon land at 8 per cent., and that he is in employment, for which he receives £52 a year, double rations, and fuel (formerly he had £60 to £70 a year, and got 10 per cent, for hi» moni'y). Thus he has an annual income of £104, out of which he has to buy clothing and pay school fees at a cost of £30 a year, leaving him a nee balance of £74 to lay past. But he wants to be his own master, lifts his money, and buys 250 ac-es of land in its natural sfate, at 20a an acre He also spends, say £250, on building a dwelling house, stable," barn, and stockyard, and the £150 of a balance is expended upon fence 9, making a total investment in landed property of £650. He takes possession of his estate, and naturally expects to make as much out of his fresh investment as from the last, in addition to earning as good wages as formerly. Very probably he does not handle the return in hard cash, but his wages are expended in labor, whereby his property is increased in value to that amount, and the interest of his money goea the same road, and in the natural aJvance in the vulue of hind, so that on the expiry of the first year the farm \3 worth £724, instead of £650, i which, at 8 per cent., gives say £58, which I should say would be the annual ' value to let for the land in its then present state — the annual value always increasing in proportion to the amount expended on improvements, and no judicious man will go on spending money unless he sees a fair prospect of a return. Men have no difficulty in earning 20s a week and found in various ways, and why should thfiy toil all their days upon a piece of land because it is their own if they are neither getting money out of it nor improving its value ? I think that if a valuator, when examining a farm, considers the original value or cost of the land, its increase in value naturally by the advance and general improvement of the district, or the reverse, and the amount of judicious improvement* effected upon it, he will have little difficulty in determining its value to let although no land may be let in the neighborhood. As to rating upon the acreage instead of the annual value, I hold that the class which uses the roads is entitled to pay for them. The man who cultivates expects to make a profit from his cultivation as well as the man who puts stock only upon his land, and it is certainly unjust that one man should pay for what another uses. If tolls were put on as some propose, then those who use the road would have to pay for it ; but the cost of collection would swallow up too great a proportion of the income to make that system work.

I notice that one of the Boards in Southland proposes valuing all cultivated land at one rate ; this is certainly not in accordance with the Ordinance, and cannot ba uphold in equity. It ia most unlikely that the land of a district is all of one value. On© man may occudv a farm of 100 acres that yields three times the return of his neighbor's through the lan 1 being of better quality, or gome other cause ; or one farm may be at a post or market town, and the other ten milea away, within the same distriofc, and if the soils are of equal quality, the position of the one make 3 it of more annual value than the other, and if T am the farmer occupying the less advantageous position, have I not a good cause to appeal, having to pay the came as my more fortunate noigbbor P— Youth, &".. Yat/de to Ltzt.