COST OF LIVING

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 105, 5 May 1915, Page 8

COST OF LIVING

At a meeting of tho Wellington Branch of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers tho following motion was unanimously carried: — <f That thia meeting of engineers views with alarm the enormous and uncalled-for rise in the cost of living:, and calls on the Government to do its duty to the worker 3 of this* country, from whom the bulk of the expeditionary forces are drawn. Firstly, by the imposition of a tax on unimproved land values of sixpence in the pound. Secondly, by doubling the income tax, .the landowners to be exempt from this tax. By this method, Customs could be reduced on tea, coffee, cocoa, children's foods, etc., the Government to see that the prices are reduced accordingly. The tax on land values (unimproved) would release the land from # the grip of the speculator, and open it up to cultivation, thus increasing our export trade, and also increasing our revenue, and enabling us to further assist the Empire in its hour of need. The workers are doing their duty ; let the landowners do theirs. Thia class (the landowners) do nothing to add to the nation's wealth, therefore, to unduly consider this class is to neglect the wealth producers."