LAND TAX.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue XLIX, 9 December 1892, Page 6

LAND TAX.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS. Sin, —One man can take a horse to the water, twenty cannot make him drink. It is easy-enough for a foolish and unpatriotic Government to impose socialistic taxes upon a colony, but it is another thing—unless the colonists have become foolish and unpatriotic too—to get those taxes paid. Everyone must know by this time that if money is invested in New Zealand land or in loans to New Zealand farmers, it is subject under the new law to heavier taxation than if disposed of in any other way ; and everyone must wonder why this should be so, and why, when we are professedly offering inducements for more people to " settle on the land," we should in practice be trying to drive those already there away. The mystery, however, is soon cleared up; for, in the imposition of graduated fines on the ■ larger ownership of property, the cloven I hoof of the worst kind ot laud nationaliser lis at once apparent. Carried away, like children, by the pleasant theories of Henry George and Bellamy, our rulers (who own no land themselves) hastily decide that these dreams will be best realised here at some future date it a course of gradual confiscation by direct robbery is initiated now. And the tirst steps in this direction are being taken with a reckless disregard of the temporary welfare of the community, which every true Socialist must unhesitatingly condemn. Where is employment to be found for our country-working population ] while the employers are undergoing the pro- j cess of extinction ? Where are the wages to come from, while the wages fund is being drawn uppn to an ever increasing extent by the tax-collector ? How is trade to prosper in a country the value of whose securities has been depreciated, and whose pastoral and agricultural enterprise has been killed ? Many are the devices for evading the operation of this Act, which men talk of adopting in their own defence by and bye. There would be more pluck shown and less selfishness by a direct refusal of obedience nOw. The first instalment of this tax is already due j now, therefore, is the time for all who have New Zealand's interest at heart to unite in the .powerful protest of non-payment against thia unconstitutional, unnecessary, and colonially-suicidal innovation.—Yours, &c, K.R.N.