PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL ASSOCIATION.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9669, 6 March 1897, Page 9

PROGRESSIVE LIBERAL ASSOCIATION.

PUBLIC MEETING. A public meeting under the auspices of the Progressive Liberal Association was held in the Druids' Hall last evening. Mr Shaw BiltclifTe was in the chair, and there was a moderate attendance. Mr H. G. Ell gave an address on the " Land Question." The speaker said we had already many of the ~ ..evils of land monopolies in New Zealand. There were 139 persons with holdings rahgirg from ton to twenty thousand acres in area. Figures were given showing that in the colony there were 230. persons holding between them 6,437,450 acres, and 32 companies holding 7,840,202 acres. . Land monopoly, so far as Stato land was W-cerned, was no longer possible. The . limit to private lands could bo avoided by preventing the transfer of a certain area to ■ people. The h\ah rents paid by our distriIntlon hod a bad effect on our wage earners •-overtime was resorted to in order to get more out of the worker. The proportion of the wages of our producers which went in Wilt for tho cottage homo was far too rt in the country, and saps from to 25 per cent, of the wage, earnor's income. The more the cost 'of production was reduced the less need vu there for protective duties; the sacrifice must not be made by tho wago earners but the land values. We must tax the land on which tho large industrial establishments are built, but exempt the buildings. These buildings represented expended labour. The land on which the buildings stand must bo taxed. The land had been increased in value through the erection of the buildings, and it crept up in value without any effort on the part of the -, owner. A short tow ago £1000 was refused for aj •tnall • section in Cashel street, unlenofcd and covored with weeds. For a ■wtion In Cathedral square secured from «» rid Canterbury Association a few years *g°i £7000 was paid. Tho speaker cited several other cases, and quoied from a speech hf Michael Davitt to the effect that the •sate paid by millionaires and employers pemly, by 'shopkeepers and all who •spply the industrial population with the "eMMaries of life, were high in pro- j portion to the ground rents paid to the landlord, and theso high rents \ coma in the form of lower wages or higher J P*^ 6 **-w provisions out of the earnings of tfc ( ?* J,n B c - aß, *-s* This was an aspect of we labour question to which artisans and "Donrera did not give the study it demanded. wecfaiiiQs and town workers too frequently ■J* 0 - that 'behind question was a subject winch only concerned farmers and landlords. |)Q greater mistake could be made than this. *vei*ything we did in life was done on land, gradually repurchasing the 'and. and not turning land jobbers. Having purchased it, people should hold it subject ft* P ayme *- t «* a tax. On the conclusion of his address several tl» T ke ' ancl the meeting ended with the usual votes oi thanks.