UNEMPLOYMENT AND LAND

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 45, 21 August 1931, Page 5

UNEMPLOYMENT AND LAND

v "Several correspondents to ■ your columns are seriously perturbed over'th« unemployment" of thousands of : our boy* and young men, and truly, to. Call such a state of ■ things a national tragedy is not overstating the situation," writes B. A. Gosse. The writer holds that the cause of. depression^ is -the post-war speculation in land-values. The : youths can be successfully absorbed on the land, but not by saddling a small proportion of them upon the large landowners or by settling them in camps on remote and unprofitable country, at a huge expense to the taxpayer. "The costly failure-of soldier settlements should deter us ; from further steps in this direction. Our proper and only course to regain prosperity, a course that: cannot much longer^ be avoided; is to_ impose a substantial tax upon the selling value of land, say 2d or 3d in th« £on the unimproved value. All exemptions should be abolished, as it is pure nonsense to talk further about the'small man being unable to'pay. The small jnan can pay the levy, the wage .feat,, the tea, sugar, and primage taxes, therefore let him pay a stiff land-tax along with his wealthier neighbour, and-.repeaMnV foregoing crude and obnoxious; taxes. Such a step would compel a more intense use of our fertile land,' and, there being 180,000 farms in the country, the extra1 eatployment of only one man or youth to each farm is more than sufficient to/absorb jihe unemployed^