THE GRADUATED LAND TAX

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22308, 24 January 1938, Page 9

THE GRADUATED LAND TAX

TO I'HK CDITOk or I'HC PRESS. Sir, —Mr J. Hill expresses regret that "he was absent when I rang him up on the evening when his first letter appeared." I am at a loss to know how he got that notion into his head, because I have never "rung him up" at any time. As a matter of fact 1 had no idea of his address, but had assumed that he was living at Claverley. Mr Hill's excuse that the Hon.' P. Fraser's declaration to the delegates at the last annual conference of the New Zealand Labour Party that the Government would only consider the decisions of the conference "as recommendations" is quaint, to say the least. Mr Hill states: "It would have been dictatorship, pure and simple, had the Hon. P. Fraser and his colleagues decided to give legislative effect only to Labour Party decisions and ignore the requests for legislative action from everybody outside the Labour movement." The satisfaction of the des'res of the few at the expense of the many was one of the many reasons why the late Government was defeated in November. 1935. Why have a Labour Party at all. then, if the decisions of the delegates assembled in conference are to be left to the tender mercies of the members of the Cabinet? MiHill's argument is tantamount to giving the Government power to act according to the exigencies of the moment, to do whatever is expedient to ensure that it shall remain in office, or what it thinks will have that effect, and in my opinion that is exactly what the Government has been doing.

So far as my statements about the Hon. R. Semple are concerned, Mr Hill's excuse is very weak. Everybody who is conversant with that, gentleman's utterances knows that I stated the truth. Mr Hill must remem-

ber the ban on a certain subject being discussed in the hall at Claverley. We know that it is a "boast of Britishers that any subject can be discussed openly in England. Why. even the Fascists can march through London, and. I have no doubt, the Communists could do likewise. It would be interesting to learn what would be likely to happen were either of these bodies to attempt to parade in strength in "God's Own Country." In reply to "Ishmael Diogenes," his argument resembles the one which was hurled at a certain politician in the form of a rotten egg. The speaker said. "That is the only argument you possess and it is a bad one." The statement he makes: "Mr Hunter's hostility to the graduated land tax is that he is a landlord and that lu's ox is being gored." is not true, as the only property that I am interested in is the home that I occupy. As far as the graduated land tax is concerned, it is rather significant that no attempt has been made to defend it.—Yours, etc.,

HIRAM HUNTER. January 10, 1938. I This correspondence is now closed. — Ed., "The Press." 1