GO TO BATH!

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 234, 11 February 1911, Page 7

GO TO BATH!

To the Editor. Sir,—As a recent arrival from Bath, England, I was naturally interested in your paragraph showing the tremendous disparity between the prices of property in the city of King Bladud and those ruling in any so-called "town"—or series of wooden shacks—in New Zealand. The advertisement you quote shows that a • ten-roomed house in one of the best parts of Bath may be bought for £350. You I mention that in this country of htehl "values" the advertisement seems ridi- ( culous. May I point out that high price! is not high value, that the "value" of the £350 house in Bath is much greater than that of a similar-sized house that! would cost £ISOO in Wellington or) Auckland or any of the small towns in! this country which seem to be dumping' grounds for inefficient carpentering, bad! material, and for the exercise of the tigerish activity of sharpers who pose as! land agents, and the victimisation of the I meekest people in the world. A mere timber hovel in a New Zealand town costs double the price that would have to be paid for a sound dwelling of similar size in any part of England, and as far as I am able to judge after eighteen months' travel in every part of these islands the people apparently feel that England ought to wake up and copy them. While people confuse 'price" with "value," mistake kennels for dwellings and land-sharks for philanthropists, the life of a particularly sweet little country win be poisoned. I would much like to settle down in New Zealand, but am not anxious to pay £IOOO for £250 worth of execrable workmanship, bad timber, and land which should, contain a gold mine to make it worth the price asked—l am, etc., LANSDOWN. New Plymouth, 9/2/11.