LAND VALUES AND SETTLEMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 81, 7 April 1931, Page 8

LAND VALUES AND SETTLEMENT

(To the Editor.)

Sir.—"Trade and ■commerce, if thsy wore nut made of india-rubber, would never manage to bounce over the obstacles wlik'h legislators are continually putting in their way." . -. • An insufferable burden of taxation lios been placed upon an impoverished community of workers and business people connected with the distribution of import and export commodities by .the recent legislation passed in the House, and which is intended to act as a palliative for the present and future depression. The fundamental principle . underlying the cause of the depression is allowed lo go unheeded by members of Parliament, who profess to represent knowledge, wisdom, experience, integrity, and other qualifications of the highest character. Without regard to land values, and particularly rural land values, the present income tax. Customs duties, and wage reductions bear heavily upon the community; the depression becomes intensified while unemployment increases; apathy in. the House rules supreme; the cause of the depression becomes bo deeply rooted that all manner of specious proposals put forward by our "perplexed" politicians fall upon the dismayed public like a national calamity. The cause of the depression is through an unjust 'land system and excessive borrowing of money, resulting in land speculation and land aggregation. The fictitious values oE rural land point to a muchneeded flat-rate land-tax being', imposed upon the unimproved value of all land, so as to free it from idleness and monopoly. Such a tax series a dual purpose by enabling capital and labour (now withheld) to become employed, in increasing the production of primary products, and at the same time economic secondary industries, as well as stopping the drift.of capital and labour from the country to other pursuits, already over supplied with both these factors of production.- : While much of the land is held by means of mortgage deeds in the hands of landowners and financial institutions, unimproved values of land are rigidly maintained against the dictates of commonsense and economic worth. The only expedient way to bring land' values ■ down to an economic basis to attain the object of increasing the production of commodities is by imposing a flat-rate landtax, and at the same time reducing the Customs duties and income tax., Reductions in the interest rates which are being asked for in favour of mortgagors are both unfair and futile in attaining legitimate lower land values. So long as the question of taxing the land is left in a. state o£ contempt by our politicians, capital will be locked up, unemployment will increase, and the present morass into which the people have been plunged* will in'no way compare with the depression that will have to be faced when income tax payers are unable to pay more, Customs duties, etc.,, prevent the consumption of commodities', and the masses are without work.

Such an astounding statement, as was made by the late Sir Joseph Ward, in Motiiekn, in 1929, "that there were 15,000 fewer people engaged in primary production than there were in 1919" speaks of itself, what the Land for Settlement Act, has done after thirty-six years' operation, other than enriching those already rich through land monopoly and speculation. While specific cases of land for settlement purchases have been Recorded, and which go to show the bungling methods used by politicians to deal with the land question, instances, such as the owners of Flaxbourne being paid £60,000 more than the land-tax valuation; the owners of Forest Gate £13,000; the owners of Hatuma £23,----000, we nave a more recent record of the Government's idea of settling the land by the recent purchase of the Galatea block. Had a land-tax been imposed instead of the Government buying land, thousands of acres would have been brought into more intensive cultivation, thereby absorbing labour and capital, or else the present holders of land finding they could no longer afford to hold valuable land from ] cultivation, would find it more profitable to surrender that part of idle land to the State, or else sell it at a reasonable price, and thereby convert a wilderness, probably in the shape of a sheep station, into homesteads for families willing to take up land at reasonable values. It is to be hoped New Zealanders will not allow politicians to shrink from their responsibility in dealng with the land question; but that they will assert themselves in drawing the attention of politicians to the present unsatisfactory land schemes, which have proved to be a costly and uneconomic way of settling people on' the land, and which have robbed the community of much of their, capital, for instance, by being taxed to provide the funds for' writing off fictitious values as was done in connection with the soldier settlements. If members of Parliament lapse into a state of apathy in dealing with the land question, promoted by fear of losing the support of invested land-interests, the people of New Zealand will be jointly to blame with, the politicians for a prolonged depression, the cause of which is manmade and internal.—l am, etc., R. G. VARLOW. 6th April.