THE LAND QUESTION.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 895, 15 August 1910, Page 9

THE LAND QUESTION.

Sir,—To aiiyone following tho daily debates in the liousse,'' uwlouutikuy tho most noticeable' features this session has'been the-.almost entire ■absence, of- any' intelligent grasp of the subject discussed, or" of the A li (J of economics. This was,perhaps, most striking in tho t'utilo . debate on the land question: Mere was a subject to which it might ' : reasonably have been expected the intelligence of the House would have brought the searchlight of a full knowledge of modern reforms, backed by practical experience. Yet not one member threw any fresh light on tho greatest question df the hour—ouo which more intimately' affects our own and our children's future' than perhaps any other. Here, in a- new country, where every man should be ablo at a reasonable outlay to place himself or his sons upon the land, it has become a practical impossibility to do so, except by paying a prohibitive price, or else by the bare possibility of his being so "lucky" as to draw, a' section at tho periodical land gambles that take place uuder the ballot system. ' '.-.-,

Out of sonio 600 students who ■ enter their names annually at the Wellington College, I doubt if 2 per cent, enter their future calling as„ farming!' What, then, is at the root of the fact that-in a new country, with large areas lying idle, and with those areas that are occupied, only partially used, land is so dear? The answer 'is the old one—land is being used and valued,, not- as God intended it, for wliat it will produce for man's benefit, but as a gambling medium of exchange, whereby the owner is enabled to demand and obtain a price based upon the necessity of the community for laud, and the value created: by the community. -Let mo take an example. A man draws the' "lucky" number at the ballot. His section comprises 1000 acres l.i.p. bush land, valued by the Government at 15s. per acre. His rent would be about £35 per annum; He effects improvements.to the extent 'of, "say', ,£BOO, in felling, grassing, and fencing. Then getting tired of his section, or desirous to "get rich quickly," ho offers it for sale at a price of .£3 per acre after two years' teuanacy.. He is thus pocketing over £2000 of unearned increment, to which -his ; labours have contributed nothing. To pay this "good- . will" of £2000 the purchaser raises a mortgage through the Advances to Settlers' Office, and thus this office, which was primarily created for the purpose of assisting settlers to- clear and improve their lands, is employed as a means to bolster up fictitious values, and fill the pockets of the land speculator. In order to raise enough to stock and clear his land, tho purchaser is compelled to raise a second mortgage and give a bill of sale over his stock. Often he struggles on in the hope that someone else will come along upon whom ho cau raise the price a few- pounds per acre, and so pass tho burden on to his own profit. The money spent by the community in; creating roads and railways, in opening up the land, in developing fast'steamboat services, in building townships, and generally supplying the needs of civilisation, not to. mention the advantages continually supplied by the discoveries of genius, such..as the Laval .separator, the freezing process, etc., adds a value to land which under the present system is utilised, not for the benefit, but to the injury of tho community which creates it!

Lot me, at the risk of your censure, sir, take another instance. The Wellington City Council is composed in tho main of business men. ■ They would rightly resent, any imputation, that either in their civic or private capacities they ever gave "something for nothing." Yet these gentlemen, all presumably sane, have lately decided, or arc about to decide, . to purchase at some £\&0 or .£2OO per acre, at Lyall Bay, land to which I their own outlay has alone given its i value! Tho council first creates nn expensive tramway to Lyall Bay, raising tho money required by the usual loan, and then proceeds to buy back (by a further loan) the values it has created by its own enterprise!' Could madness go further? What, then,'is the remedy for land speculation,' With its attendant evils? It is evident that dear land, whether rural or urban, is a curse to the community. In tho country it is gradually creating a landlord class, based upon high rents. No wonder the farmer objects to pay his employees a fair wage, or to grant them decent working hours! How can he, with land, at anything up to .£(ls per acre? No wonder Our lads decline to go into the country, when after a laborious and illpaid apprenticeship there is no chance of their obtaining any land! In the towns and suburban areas land speculation is responsible for high rents, with all the

misery entailed thereby upon the breadwinner anil the poor wifo and children. It lies, together with our iniquitous system of taxing the people upon their necessities (tho inevitable corollary of unchecked private land speculation and monopoly) at the root of the failure in birth-rate. How then can it bo checked? Only when the peoplo arc educated to see that the values they themselves create belong to themselves. That dear land is an unmixed evil; that to talk of a fictitious value arbitrarily placed upon land by t our present gambling system as "wealth" is as great nonsense as to speak of paper money m the same terms; that "wealth" consists only in what a community can, produce, whether from the land or from the mine; that to transfer to the State by means of a tax when land is transferred, the com-munity-created value, is not merely nil economic, but a moral necessity.—l am, etc., X, August 7, 1910.