Approximate Estimate.

But I believe the late Colonial Treasurer to have laid before the Legislature a perfectly worthless estimate of this excellent resource. During the elections in the end of the year 1875, I published a calculation of the income to be derived from grazing sheep on wild land, in making which I was aided by the long experience of one of the most sagacious and successful of those men, who have during the last thirty years realised large incomes from that pursuit. The calculation is, that on wild pasture not over-stocked, good management will produce a net income averaging 4s. 9d. yearly from each merino sheep. That estimate has never been contradicted yet. I now supplement it by the assertion that all the private landed property in New Zealand would, on an average, carry more than one such sheep to the acre, all the year round. The very lowest assessment that could be made would estimate the annual income from that property at 5s. an acre. It is impossible for a private individual to reckon, accurately, how much of the thirteen million acres may produce a far larger yearly income per acre than this.

The existing County, Borough, and Road Board organizations would afford an excellent means of valuing the income of all such landed property as comes within their respective jurisdictions; it would not be difficult for Government Commissioners, armed with the power of "calling for persons and papers," to value the income of landed and other property within Counties or parts of Counties, in which no valuing or organization has been established.

As a private individual, armed with no such powers, my estimate must necessarily be a very rough one; but I will try to keep it within the mark.

Let us try and estimate the income to be derived from good arable land. Putting the average wheat crop at 30 bushels, and the price at 4s. a bushel on the farm, the gross produce will be worth £6 per acre. Allowing 10s. per acre as interest at 10 per cent, on a farming capital of £5 per acre, and £2 per acre for annual working expenses, there will be a balance of £3 10s. per acre as net yearly income.

If land of this quality be laid down in artificial grass, it will carry eight long-woolled sheep to the acre. The income from these cannot be reckoned at less than 10s. per sheep yearly, clear of working expenses; so that, deducting only the 10s. per acre for interest on farming capital, we shall still have £3 10s. per acre as the net yearly income of the land.

There is, of course, much arable land of a less productive quality than this: and there is some which has produced a great deal more. But I think the following may page 26 be considered a very low estimate of the net yearly income from the whole private landed property in New Zealand, if it were all used for agricultural and pastoral purposes only.

6,500,000 acres at	5s.	£1,625,000 net annual income
3,250,000 acres at	10s.	£1,625,000 net annual income
2,000,000 acres at	£1	£2,000,000 net annual income
750,000 acres at	£2	£1,500,000 net annual income
500,000 acres at	£3 10s.	£1,750,000 net annual income
13,000,000		£8,500,000

This supposes an average net annual income of 13s. per acre. A tax of is. In the £ would produce £425,000, or three and a quarter times the amount estimated by Major Atkinson.

But this is exclusive of all land with position value, for either business or pleasure purposes; land used for building, planting, gardening, brick-making, rope-making, mining, quarrying, &c., in towns, suburban, and raining districts. A very low estimate of the additional income or rent produced by such advantages of site, or subterraneous composition, would swell the total net annual income from private landed property to fully ten millions, and the amount of a tax at is. In the £ to £500,000 a year; at 6d. in the £ to at least £250,000 a year, but possibly much more.