Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 1909. VALUATION OF LAND.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4421, 8 June 1909, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News

TUESDAY, JUNE 8,1909. VALUATION OF LAND.

This above all—to thine own self be true, And tt must follow as the night the day Thou canst not then be false to any man Shakespeare.

A woSd to the wise 1 is sufficient From all parts of the Dominion come warnings about the high price of land. Agricultural Societies and private persons have entered very strong protests against the valuation of land for taxation purposes. The Land Valuation Department has denied most emphatically that it gave instructions to valuers to put up the valuations beyond what was fair and just. We do not for a moment doubt the integrity of the Department, but we do think lhat valuers sometimes base their valuations on very inadequate data. One swallow does not make a summer, ar.d it does not follow that because A.B.C. sold his land for a high price per foot or per acre, that everybody else could go and do likewise. Yet that is the conclusion that many valuers jump to, and they assess all adjacent lands at a high figure, because of one or two sales which may have been made under very special circumstances. We find it hard to believe that the present high prices which prevail can

b« smta : ned. Land is- worth nnly what it will .yield as agricultural, pas toral, or building land. Some pers ns for sentimental reas ms, will give fancy prices, but others of a more pinctieal turn of mind waut to see a moderate return on prices paid. It is now pretty generally recognised by farmers, investors, and others, that land ought to yield a return of five per cent, on the purchase money, and brick buildings should return six per cent, and wooden buildings seven per cent. There is often a very great differ ence in the estimates of expert land agents and valuers, as is seen when cases of land valuation are doalt with in open Court. If the valuers were agreed upon a fair percentage return upon the purchase money, there could not be the bewildering discrepancy between valuers which we see to-day. Many of them seem to estimate what they think they could sell the land for, or what they could induce some person, possibly a halfwitted one, to give for it. Tho pi inciple is wrong. An equitable piinciple to assess the land at is such a sum as would realise a fair return in interest.

It may be replied that : “ Some land yields no interest, and nevertheless it is valuable and cannot be equitably assessed on its return.” The reply is : It’s capital value can be taken then as is done in Assessment Courts. One thing is very certain, more is being obtained for land outside of the principle cities of New Zealand than is being obtained for land at similar distances outside of Liverpool, Manchester, London, and other principle cities in England, where the teeming millions of population so vastly exceeds ours. In the King Country land is being] sold in township, quarter-acre sections, at the rate of from £OOO to £I,OOO per acre. Country lands are being so’d in some parts of North New Zealand at from £4O to £SO per acre. Is it wise to pay such prices ? Can farmers make such high priced land pay ? Can business people continue to pay the enormous rents they have paid for business sites ? "Will mortgagees go on lending two-thirds of these high prices ? "We want to see business done and people prosper; but we hold that it is bad for the individual and for the general community, for unjustifiable prices to prevail. Nothing can possibly compensate men for the killing anxieties they experience through excessive and unprofitable prices, when business gets depressed and money dear. Our bankruptcy Courts often give us' lurid warnings against rash land speculations. Creditors sometimes lose their own hard earning# be?au#3 speculators have ventured too boldly on land purchases, The Banks at the present time have put on the screw and curtailed the overdraft of land speculators Many have learned a severe lesson by having to realize p.t a great loss. A prudent man foreseeing the evil, hideth himself; but the rash go on and are punished. It concerns the whole community that land buyers should get a quid pro quo for their money. Fair prices lead to business and to progress, and we hope that present tokens of greater care in buying will redound to the peace and prosperity of individuals and of Society.