RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 115 



situated are not only getting no relief in taxation, in comparison with 

 the owner of residential property, but they are probably paying taxes 

 on 100 per cent of the value of their farms, while some residential 

 owners and real estate operators in the districts are paying on less 

 than five per cent of their real values. 



A change in the system of assessment is needed, including stan- 

 dardization, in each province. The appointment of competent and 

 trained valuers, who understand the principles of land valuation, 

 with tribunals of experts to determine appeals, is required to precede 

 any reform in taxation and are necessary as a means to assist agri- 

 culture and arrest injurious speculation. Real estate operators are 

 not good valuers, and their experience is hurtful rather than helpful 

 to sound judgment, while legal tribunals are incompetent to decide 

 appeals on purely economic questions requiring scientific training 

 in the principles of valuation. It takes about ten years of special 

 training in the principles and practice of land valuation to make a 

 land valuer in Britain, although the system of taxation in that coun- 

 try has not hitherto been based on the capital values of land to any 

 great extent. The land valuer in Canada should be trained and pro- 

 tected in the same way as the land surveyor; indeed, the proper method 

 would be for the surveyor to be the valuer, after receiving special 

 training in valuation. 



People who buy land for use should be safeguarded against 

 their own natural ignorance of a matter requiring great skill and much 

 experience to determine, and also against misrepresentation. This 

 safeguard should be in the form of an assessment roll prepared by 

 qualified persons. 



The whole system of taxation for local purposes in Ontario, and 

 generally throughout Canada, is based on the present system of valua- 

 tion which, as has been shown, is so absurd that land in some dis- 

 tricts is valued for assessment for one purpose at from fifteen to twenty 

 times its declared value for another purpose — both values being sworn 

 by the assessors to be the market value of the land. 



The system of public valuation encourages land gambling, 

 whereas it should hamper it by providing a basis on which to arrive 

 at real values. In so far as land values are high from the following 

 causes they are injurious to the community: 



(1) Speculation and improper assessment. 



(2) Overcrowding of buildings on lots and high buildings. 



(3) Owners not being compelled to finance their own improve- 



ments and provide proper sanitary arrangements in ad- 

 vance of building. 



