THE LAND TAX INIQUITY.
[To THE EDITOR OP IRS "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—Your correspondent last week did well in drawing attention to the want of experience in those gentlemen appointed to carry out the valuations. It is all very well to say that they are mostly qualified by being members of some institution, but that does not imply that they have the
necessary experience. Who would give an important brief to a gentleman just called to the Bar ? I think I am right in stating that a gas inspector of a small town in Kent had an appointment under the Act and that the district in which he was to act was in Buckinghamshire. What can be thought of the site value of labourers' cottages put at over £100 per acre, and these are about three miles from the station ; but the same valuer places the site value of a house worth about £90 per annum at £50 per acre, and this house is about half a mile from the same station. Can it be that the idea is to show how dear the land is for cottages, notwithstanding the fact that this same valuer places the adjoining land at less than half this sum. One valuer who placed a site value at £42,000, jumped up at once to £60,000, and then agreed to settle at even a higher figure. These are not isolated cases, but are, I fear, as much the rule as the exception.—I am, Sir, &c.,
SURVEYOR.
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