New-York tribune., 1922-07-09
New Zealand Freeholders
There Are Greater Evils Than Rented
harms

Sir: incose you q clipping from
"The New Zealand Herald" published
at Auckland, N. a., regarding tenant
farming in tho United States. My OBJ
ject in writing is to try to show you
that there are greater evils than
rented farms"
In New Zealand, particularly on the
freehold" farms Of the Auckland
District, there are to-day thousands of
farmers on so-callcd freehold" farms
struggling to pay four or five times
as much money in the form of 'inter-
est" an acre as American farmers
are paying in the form of trent" for
land, subject to worse conditions for
marketing the products Of the land
than any land in the back blocks of
the u, S. A. This condition is brought
about by farmers selling their so-called
freehold farms to each other on very
small cash deposits. This is what we
call in New Zealand "the farmers
farming the farmers" instead IF farm
ing the land,
For some years past section OF
the voters have favored a land tax,
which, to get revenue, the government
adopted. Farmers were taxed and
locally rated on the "unimproved
value" in place Of what was called the
go tot Aa f.,
are rented farms, the majority of New
Zealand people are unable to realize
that the rental value is the only
sound and true basis on which taxa
course is the rent, or money paid in
rent, "capitalZed" at the prevailing
rate of interest when the land is
valued by the government for taxation
purposes. If land was valued for
taxation on this basis, which must ba
done on rented farms where the rent
is bought and Sold instead of on our
freehold-land where the farmers are
bought and sold by each other--no one
would be interested in forcing up this
mysterious thing called "unimproved
value" until the land tax taken by the
government comes to more money
than it is worth in annual rent.
The farmers who have made money
by farming other farmers are pleased
to see the unimproved value rising, be-
cause they can point out that the
value is there on account of the ex-
perts in government valuation Offices
saying that value is to be the taxable
value until the experts are again sent
around to revalue the land at higher
figure, in order that the taxation de-
partment can get more revenue with
out increasing taxation or rates.
This forcing up of land values is
directly caused by our system of So
called freehold farms, therefore I can
not agree with you when you say:
America is only beginning to enter
the era of intensive agricultural pro-
duction. That this should be accom-
panied by an ever-increasing number
OF rented farms is unfortunate 1t
would be better for the country If the
reverse were true"
A country with greater number of
rented farms could not possibly get
into the fix that our freehold farmers
are now in. The land tax now confis-
Gates and destroys more capital value
than can be done by any system Of
land tenure outside Russian COM
munlsm, which, of course, were it pos
slble to carry it out, would destroy
every form of exchangeable value in
the world, and the whole OF our world
wide system of finance would collapse.
Yet most people fail to see it and 90
on advocating the increase of the land
tax and pretending that the unim-
proved value of the taxation experts is
the product of brains not possessed nv
anybody outside the valuation depart
mene' which costs more to run than Is
at present being spent in raising the
whole Of the agricultural exports of
New Zealand.
II the cost is not in money it is
more than made up in WORRY to the
people who are now suffering from the
issue OF paper land values in the form
OF mortgages on non-existent land
values.
You people in that great country
called the United States of America.
with It's mixed breed of men, although
a very clever combination of muscle
and brains, have yet lot to learn on
such simple problems as the land ten
ure question. l have no doubt that.
presiding over such great paper as
The New York Tribune, with its world
wide circulation, you are troubled
more or less with --swelled head" and
could not learn anything from such n
simple simon" as the writer Of this
ie'.ef. A. SANFORD.
Auckland, N. e., June 1, 1922.