LAND VALUES TAXATION.
rTo TEE EDITOIS OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,-Mr. Heramerde's point that "this building value is the creation not of the Duke of Northumberland but of the people of Northumberland" (Spectator, November 28th) is the sheet- anchor of those who advocate a special tax on land values. They argue that through the combined efforts of ratepayers in her locality Mrs. Smith's legacy of a capital value of 2250,000 in land becomes in course of time, and because of no effort on Mrs. Smith's part, nearer an annual value of 2250,000, and that the ratepayers should benefit in the increase to the extent, as the Scottish Bill put it, of 10 per cent. Those who think they see in this an unprotected "ben-roost" should consider where it leads them. Are they to be liable for com- pensation when their action has the opposite effect ? Are the enterprising shipbuilders who transform a few barren acres on a river-bank into a busy yard to claim 10 per cent, of the increased value created for the owner of the adjoining fields because they therefore become at once valuable as sites for workmen's dwellings. The market-gardener and the suburban cricket club would be "land-valued" out of existence and pushed to extremes. One could imagine the householder with a fondness for a bit of garden being solemnly told that if he were fooliel enough to prefer his flowers to, say, a soap works or a tannery, so much the worse for him, but that he must pay a tax on the annual value of the ground-rent which could readily be got were the land put to such a use. Who is to fix the "yearly equivalent of the market value" of any land? If the public do not accept as their guide the apt quotation made by the Spectator now, they will in time see that "The real worth of anything•
Is just as much as it will bring,"
and that it is already taxed up to the hilt.—I am, Sir, &c., 33 Hurlinghant Court, Hurlinghant, S. W. J. M. PIRIE.
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