COBDENISM V. FOOD TAXES.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 124, 26 May 1911, Page 6

COBDENISM V. FOOD TAXES.

(To tho Editor.) Sir, —A friend haa sent mc your subleader on "Food Taxes at Home," and I have read it with great interest and pleasure. I quite agree with your characterisation of "the system of Free Imports, mistakenly described as Free Trade," and I am glad to see that you point out so clearly that by the taxation of land values "the money needed by the (Home) Government 'can be attracted elsewhere.'" But you are hardly fair to Cobden -when, you say that "Cobdenism is no more a. Tree Food'

system than the scheme of the Tariff Reformers." So long, .ago aa 1841 Richard Cobden, speaking at Derby, demanded that the old 4/ Land Tax should be levied on the then value of the land, instead of on the assessment of 1692. And he declared that, if so levied, the tax would yield £20,000,000, and that all food taxes should be abolished. If you said "Cabden Clubism" instead of "Oobdenism," you would be right; for, unfortunately, in this fundamental matter of the land question the Cobden Club ha 3 not been true to Cobden. li his Free Trade ideal bad been carried out —"You who shall liberate the land" (he said at Rochdale in 1864) "will do more for your country than we have done in the liberation of itis trade," then England would have enjoyed true Free Trade, and his prophecy that other 'countries would follow her example within five years would possibly tiave been realised. —I am, etc.,

ARTHUR WTTHY, General Secretary N.Z. Land Values League, Palace Hotel, Dunedin.