CORRESPONDENCE

Evening Post, Issue 11, 13 July 1936, Page 8

CORRESPONDENCE

CALIFORNIA CAMPAIGN

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —The account of the campaign for rational taxation, now in progress in the State of California, which appears in your issue of Saturday last, makes interesting reading. Henry George once said that anything 'done anywhere for land-value taxation must help the movement everywhere, and he was right. Accordingly, the followers of Henry George throughout the world are deeply interested in the progress of the campaign as described in your article. The importance of ths principle for which our co-work-ers in California are contending is fully proved by the fierce opposition aroused in the House of Have. Talk of Socialism or currency juggling leaves vested interests unperturbed, but propose a tax on the unimproved value of land, and "our friend the enemy" will at once take fright.

Provision for the initiative and referendum has been incorporated in the State Constitution of California since the Constitution was revised fifty-five years ago, and Mr. Jackson H. Ralston has long maintained that the procedure he has adopted is one of the best and most efficacious means of ascertainingthe mind of the electors upon a definite issue. Here again is a lesson for us. Had we the initiative and referendum on the Statute Book in this country, we could do what is being i done in California, which is really an extension of the machinery by which Wellington has adopted rating on the unimproved value. Now that a Labour Government is in power it is surely not too much for us to ask that an Initiative and Referendum Bill be passed into law, and the Henry George men may then be relied upon to have the question of taxation submitted to a popular vote in due course.

The sales tax is odious in California as it is here, but to replace it by a tax equally odious would be of no avail. But to replace it by a tax on the unimproved value of land, to be progressively increased for five years until all improvements are exempted from taxation will be a great step in the right direction towards the realisation of the ideals visualised by the author of "Progress and Poverty" namely, the complete abolition of all taxation upon the produce of labour, and the collection of the rent of land for public revenue. A just method of obtaining revenue is necessarily of paramount importance, but that consideration is small by comparison with the abolition of land monopoly and with it low wages and unemployment for all time.

The votaries of the cause associated with the name of Henry George -in this country must realise the practical importance for us of the campaign in California.—l am, etc., p. j: cregan. July 10, 1936. . :