Actual Value, Value including of Unimproved improvements. improvements. value.
Counties ... 85,818,167 27,922,735 57,880,233 Boroughs ... 36,406,862 18,442,562 17,907,662
Total ... £122,225,029 £46,365,297 £75,787,895
It thus appears that land is taxed, on an average, at 49 per cent. of its actual value inclusive of improvements in boroughs, and at 67-½ per cent. in counties; { 91} but it must be remembered that, as the urban population is not concentrated in one centre, land values have not been inflated to any great extent, and that much of the rural land has either recently been settled or is held in large blocks in a comparatively unimproved condition. The improvement or sale of such properties would, the Government believed, be promoted by the imposition of the tax. The Minister of Labour (the Hon. W. P. Reeves) expressed this view in the clearest terms: "The graduated tax is a finger of warning held up to remind them that the Colony does not want these large estates. I think that, whether partly or almost entirely unimproved, they are a social pest, an industrial obstacle, and a bar to progress." Similar feelings are, apparently, entertained towards the absentee owner, who, if he has been absent from or resident out of the Province for at least three years prior to the passing of the annual Act imposing the tax, is required to pay an additional 20 per cent. upon the amount of graduated land-tax to which he would otherwise be liable. The income and land taxes produce a revenue about equal to that formerly derived from the property tax, and are collected from far fewer taxpayers, the respective numbers being 15,808 and 26,327 in a population of some 700,000 persons. The benefits have been felt principally by tradesmen, miners, mechanics, labourers, and small farmers. Of 91,500 owners of land, 76,400 escape payment of the land-tax. It { 92} may be noted, incidentally, that a permissive Act of 1896 authorises such local bodies as adopt it to levy rates on the basis of the unimproved value of land. Much anxiety has been felt by large landowners and owners of urban property throughout Australasia at the successive adoption of a tax on unimproved values by South Australia, New Zealand, and New South Wales. They fear that it is the first step towards the national absorption of land values advocated by Henry George, but forget that the Governments of New South Wales and New Zealand, in respect of exemptions, and of New Zealand and South Australia, in respect of graduation, have introduced features in their systems of taxation which cause them to be fundamentally distinct from his proposals. The Bill passed through the Victorian Assembly in 1894, but rejected by the Council, also provided for exemptions.