10. In the ten years from 1926-1927 to 1936-1937 the rateable value of the Colony has increased by $6,645,523 or 23.74 per cent.
11. If the interim valuations are deducted from the new total valuation of the Colony, the decrease this year is 7.63 per cent as compared with 6.68 per cent last year.
12. Rents have continued to fall throughout the past rating year and they are still falling. There are few tenements that have not been affected in a greater or less degree. Generally speaking the total decrease in the individual valuations in the last three years has been anything from 5% to 65%, the latter limit only in rather exceptional cases.
This is the third successive annual valuation showing a decrease, the decreases being 0.77% in 1934-1935, 5.87% in 1935-1936 and 4.76% in 1936-1937, and this in spite of the fact that during the past three years the excess of interim valuations over cancellations amounts to $3,562,991.
There has been no instance of a decrease being shown in three successive annual valuations for the last 50 years, the nearest approach being a decrease of 0.85% in 1915-1916 followed by a decrease of 0.03% in 1916-1917.
TREASURY,
15th June, 1937.
EDWIN TAYLOR,
Treasurer & Assessor.