LAND AND THE PEOPLE

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 36, 11 August 1933, Page 12

LAND AND THE PEOPLE

i The Commonwealth Land Party held the first of a series of lectures in the Dominion Farmers' Institute on Wednesday. Mr. B. A. Grosse presided. Speakers for the evening were Mr. Max Gandar and Mr. E, W. Nicolaus. Mr. Gandar dealt with- the first principle of the C.L.P. platform—the collection of the economic rent of all land. The speaker said that in effect this would restore the land to the people and at the same time abolish all taxation. ' The first' rental payment to the State would be all that the individual would be called upon to make, all he produced being his. to retain to do with as he wished. Mr., Gandar pointed out what he considered to be the evils of taxation as they were today, both of a revenue collecting and. protective nature. The-land rent collected in lieu of that taxation, the speaker maintained, would be sufficient for all governmental purposes. Mr. Nieolaus gave definitions to economic terms as applied to the various factors of production —land, labour, and capital. Land values, he said, were a means whereby the holders of land extracted an annual tribute from the workers of land. The distribution of wealth was divided into three factors— rent, wages, and interest —but by far the greater portion went to rent. Trade and the necessity for an unrestricted flow of goods in • exchange between nations ■, were also mentioned by . Mr. Nicolaus, who dealt with what he cousideredthe fallacies of social credit and the manipulation of currency. Both speakers were thanked for their addresses.