UNEARNED INCREMENT.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9340, 14 February 1896, Page 3

UNEARNED INCREMENT.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PfiESS. Sik —By the telegram report in your Saturday's issue, I perceive Mr John Morley advocates heavy taxation oa the unearned incrtmeat of suburbnu land. If such could apply to suburbaa land, say, for iustance, round Christchurch, how would it act ? Many have purchased suburban laDd from, perhaps, people who paid more for it than it sold for ; where is the unearned increment!* Agaio, say an original holder soils at a value slightly in excess of agricultural rural land ; the owner has for many years been paying heavy rated, taxes, probably ten times mare taxes and rates than the rural land, aud only waited the chance to sell, and it was the industry and perseverance of a life's coil that it was held by ; are you to tax iudustry and thrift therefore ? What is unearned increment, may I ask ? I suppose it has a starting point. Ono points out that all value above that of land held in a state of Dature is unearned increment. Another half-way along the lino of values say*, allow some small portion belongs to the capital and labour applied above actual necessities aud living, others have their ideas of increment, perhaps as crude. A pound is put into a lottery aud £5000 is won on the ticket. Is all the rest of the £5000 unearned increment 1 No, probably £4993 is not increment. The £1 difference may, in the law of chauces, represent the unearned increment, because probably it would take that sniount, or £4998 to win it again. So the increment is £1. J vat so with the land. To deal with it it would have to stand in equity on the same basis as all other commercial values. In ninety-nine cases oat of a hundred there is absolutely no unearned incremeut; the value merely represents industry, except in special circumstances, such as State railroads adding to valnos or State expenditure producing a superior value over the old normal one ; then may arise a question of increment, justly probably, but in regard to unearned increment in land values generally arising from a cause, that cause must be complete and unanswerable. And if it is fair to take on all land increment, then it should apply to commerce also, and the profit on every article should be subject to severe scrutiny, aud any profit over clerking and expenses should be impounded as increment and subject to heavy taxation, why aigna'ise laud and only penalise it. The unearned increment, as popularly expressed, really ia as much iv a tradesman's article or made-up goods as in the land. All above the cost of production is, according to some, unearned increment, which is as much a fallacy, as it is opposed to the industrial laws of labour, industry and capital.—Yours, Sec, Scrub.