LABOUR MATTERS UNITED LABOUR PARTY LAND VALUES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 27, 31 July 1912, Page 4

LABOUR MATTERS UNITED LABOUR PARTY LAND VALUES.

[BX TBI/EOBAVH— SPECIAL TO THE *OST.] OHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Mr. A. Withy, a member of the Exexutive of tho United Labour Party, and Secretary of the New Zealand Land Values League, has arrived in Cbrißtchurch after having visited several centres of population in.sthe south, where he addressed meetings, and met people interested in the movements with which ho is associated. In an interview yesterday, Mr. Withy stated that his tour had been very satisfactory. At Timaru the Labour people were discussing proposals to join the United Labour Party, and a canvass was being made for signatures to a petition to bring in the principle of rating on the unimproved value, a subject that was being much discussed in the borough just now. There had been a considerable boom in building in Timaru. Land values had increased in conseqiience, and there was a fear that if the tendency was not checked by the introduction of the unimproved value principle there would be a slump. In St. K!ilda, near Dunedin, the Mayor was taking round a petition in favour of the new system of rating. A petition for a poll was also in circulation in Dunedin city, and if the reformers were successful in St. Kilda it would help the movement iv the larger centre. In Dunedin a branch of the Land Values League had been formed, with the Hon. J. T. Paul as president. The" United Labour Party was making excellent progress in Dunedin. The House-wives' Union there was doing good work. A branch of that organisation had been formed in Invercargill, with 106 members, which was very good for -a town of Invercargill's size. • By establishing a system of co-operative purchase, it had reduced the price of milk sufficiently to meet the expenses connected with the union, without diminishing the return to the producers. It was hoped that by the same means the cost of coal would be reduced by 6s or 7s a ton, and that reductions would be made in other directions. East Invercargill and Gladstone, v which had been taken into Greater Invercargiil, were now under the unimproved value principle, and a considerable reduction had been made in the rates paid on workmen?s houses. There was a movement on foot ' to " extend the principle to all Crates in Invercargill borough, in accordance with the provisions of the Act passed last year. Miramar, a Wellington suburb, was the first borough to take advantage of the Act. A simi|ar movement was now on foot in Christcnurch and Wellington. In Gore also a petition was being signed to extend the syston of rating on the unimproved value. The application of the principle had been beneficial in Mosgiel, where the holding of vacant sections had been discouraged^ and building had been encouraged. It had been decided to form a • branch of "the United Labour Party in that town. A live branch had also been established at Alexandra South, several members of <the Federation of ' Labour submitting -their names as members. In his travel he had learnt that , a number of the rank and file of the federation were beginning to see the weak ness of the strike first and confer afterwards policy, and were steadily tending towards the the sound constitutional policy of the United Labour Party.