be assessed upon the
value of land which is not due to any effort of the owner or occupier;
they should not be assessed upon nor increased because of any buildings
which he may have erected or any improvements which he may have carried
out.

This question was closely investigated by the Land Enquiry Committee
appointed by Mr. Lloyd George in 1913. They were unanimous in condemning
the existing system and in regarding the one which I have just described
as the ideal. They were, however, met by great difficulties in its
immediate practical application, because, owing to the long prevalence
of the wrong system, an immediate and total change would bring about
rather startling alterations in the value of existing properties. The
Committee closely considered these objections, and a number of
alternative methods of bringing the change into operation gradually and
without these drastic changes in value were put forward. The one which
immediately suggested itself as the simplest, and from many points of
view the most desirable, was to leave the rates and taxes of existing
properties on their present basis, to impose them at their present rate
on the annual value of all unoccupied land, but to exempt from rates and
taxes all future buildings and improvements of every kind.

To illustrate the way in which this would work, let us revert to the
case of a block of slum property. As long as it remained in its present
condition the existing valuation based upon the annual rent obtainable
for it would apply, but any parts of it which now are or may hereafter
become unoccupied, would, instead of escaping as they do now from all
rates and taxes, contribute on the basis of the value of their sites,
which would be assessed at an annual rent for the purpose of comparison
with the existing valuations, at least until the capital values of the
whole rating area could be ascertained. If any improvements were carried
out the assessments would not be raised on that account, as they would
be under present conditions, and if a whole area were pulled down,
replanned and rebuilt, the assessment instead of being based, as it
would be to-day, on the annual value of the reconstructed property,
would be based upon the site value alone. Gradually in this way site
value would become the prevalent basis of assessment. "It is obvious,"
as the Committee said in 1913, "that unrating of future improvements is
from the economic point of view of far more importa