DEARNESS OF TOWN LANDS.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 January 1919, Page 7

DEARNESS OF TOWN LANDS.

T.o the Editor, i_ir,—-''Why does Now Plymouth make so little progress compared with other towns'with no better surroundings This question strikes many of your visitors, many who have known the place for over 40 years past. This week I have chatted with men from Wunganui and Wellington. Both expressed the same views, that the cause was, first, the land 1105-3 who shut up and hold the little sections and ask absurd figures for the site for the poor to build a shelter on, One who %vas .inxicus to buy and build, so as to make hi 3 home here, was offered a section at £'2Bo, but found out that the rates now are only a few shillings, but if he built a house he would have to lay out £7OC and then he would bo rated anything up to £lO per annum. Had this been in an enlightened town, under the unimproved value system, there would be 110 increase, but . the "section hog" will soon be "lad to sell. Then the vacant land in all directions would be covered with pleasant homes. People are anxious to crush the spread of Bolshevikisra among the workers. The remedy—settle them in decent places, in their own homes, with good breatliir.™ space between the dwellings; encourage them to good gardens and be free of'rents. By this and similar means, you could carry loan proposals, and have a busy contented people, but not while outside people are treated as pigeons only to be plucked by the "Land Ilogs."—I am, etc., UNIMPROVED VALUE.

fWhilst it is true that in many cases more than a fair thing is asked for sections in New Plymouth, it is misleading to state that there would he no increase in the rates were a home to be built upon a section. That is the theory of advocates of the unimproved value system of rating, but experience shows it does not work out in practice, for the simple reason that a certain amoiyit of money has to be raised by rates annually, and it follows that if improvements were exempted the amount to he borne by the unimproved land must be greatly increased. —Ed.] ,