"INDUSTRIAL WAR."

Evening Star, Issue 10399, 21 August 1897, Page 2 (Supplement)

"INDUSTRIAL WAR."

TO THTI EDITOR.

Sib,— l am very pleased to see that, in dealing with the industrial problem, my efforts have attracted the attention, of at least one of our representatives, Mr P. J. O’Regan, M.H.R. for Roller. In your issue of the 14th inst, Mr O’Regan very frankly and clearly expresses his convictions, and without disguise declares his belief that in the adoption of the single tax we will have prepared the groundwork to land nationalisation,which Mr O’Regan considers to be the foundation to the solution of our industrial problem.

■ ■ Without repeating word for word all of that part with which l am in perfect accord, let me say that I agree with much of what 0 Regan has said. I am, however, unable to see how the single tax, even it carried to its logical conclusion—which means the total alienation of all privately owned land—can be a first step in the direction of a solution. Some years ago I road Henry George’s ‘ Progress and Poverty,’ and I was. and am still, forcibly impressed with his strong hummi arian sentiments ; his forcible exposition of the fact (mentioned by Mr O’Regan) that in land and labor we have respectively the passive and active.and sole agents employed in the production of all wealth; and, farther, with his contention that tbe productive worker is continually being deprived of the inoreased productiveness of his labor. On all these.poiuts.Henry George stands upon impregnable ground. His remedy has, however, never received that thorough and lucid exposition, which characterises his preliminary investigations] and although it is now some years since his book first appeared I have heard of no works from his pen" which would more fully and clearly explain the operation of his remedy. To the absence of this explanation we may attribute the hesitancy of many and are clearly able to follow all his reasonings right up to that stage where he deals with the . solution of the problem. The trouble here begins with'a want of clearness; and, as Mr O’Regan will readily admit, no man can successfully expound or advocate that which he does not understand, hence any hesitancy on the part of bis admirers becomes quite intelligible. For these reasons I have never advocated the single tax. lam unable to explain to anyone how it will effect a cure of our industrial trouble. I am, however, quite open to conviction, and have no prejudice for or against any particular scheme, ~ holding as I do that it is quite : immaterial what shops the remedy takes provided that it is a real remedy. To ascertain this my only object is to test thoroughly by examination, not only the plans, but also (and particularly) the nature of the material with which we have to deal, and to which the plap must be applied. If we .build from false or defective plans, the result will be more or less disastrous. Too much care can therefore hardly be exercised ; and what ought, above all things, to be avoided- is “ taking a thing for granted.” What we want is demonstration, which is the true and only method of imparting knowledge. . Now, the problem before us is that the single tax and the nationalisation of the land will eventually put an end to industrial war. The shortcomings of this proposal are that land nationalisation only changes the ownership of the land from private to public, and does not in any way change our system of remunerating labor, nor that of determining the value of land. This being so, I fail to see how anything but a nominal difference will exist between the tenant who pays his rent to the State and the tenant who pays it to the private individual. In both oases rent is paid, which is the very evil I understand Mr O’Regan seeks to remove. Coming back to our first proposition, our mutual aim is to provide a more equitable system for the distribution of wealth, if it is the intention of land nationaliaers to provide, in addition to acquiring the ownership, a new and equitable standard by which to determine the rent of all lands. Then, if such be the case, why not at first explain and apply to all private and public land such a standard? If ibis not their intention to frame a standard, then the mere change of ownership will certainly help us nothing.

“ The impression so prevalent amongst reformers, that State ownership would solve onr industrial trouble, is the greatest fallacy conceivable. Our industrial trouble does not primarily arise from private ownership —which is the - incidental outcome of the course, pursued in production-.and distribution in times past. This is so ably proved by Henry George where he demonstrates the primitive methods of production and its subsequent development. He shows us very clearly that private ownership in land followed—mark this I—as a result of the course pursued in production and distribution. Private ownership in land is therefore an effect—an outcome of - some preceding cause. Had the distribution of wealth been equitable preceding the period of private ownership the land would then have continned to be held by the tribe, community, or nation in trust for the benefit of the whole people. At that period when the insidious germ was sown which ultimately developed into private ownership justice and equality were incomprehensible terras: Physical force constituted right, and mi<*ht the sole arbiter of all disputes. °

Private ownership in land being an effect must therefore not be confounded with and be taken for the cause of our present inequitable system of distribution, which is a subject dealing with the methods employed in the determining of value, wages, rent, and interest, and is not concerned with the question of whether the ownership in land is colled aneous or individual. Some force is, however, given in favor of State ownership by a belief that rents would be lower. Such advantage would, however, not make the distribution of wealth more equitable while private ownership exists alongside of Crown lands. Competition in the course of time would, of course, level the rents, and a fresh reduction could be made again. This process might go on until there was no more rent to reduce, and with the disappearance of rent would also follow all speculation in land, which would then be as free as the air we breathe. So far as I understand Mr O’Regan’s contentions, this is, however, not the object of nationalisation, which is to use land as a means by which the State might collect all needful taxation, and having, in place of our many cumbersome and expensive tax departments, one simple system. On this point lam at one with Mr O’Regan. But as a new taxation (even assuming it to be a perfect system) is not a new method of distributing wealth, but merely a new method of collecting money from the people, 1 fail to see how we are brought any nearer to a solution.

Mr O’Regan contends “that private property in land is not compatible with freedom, and hence must be incompatible with equal opportunity for employment.” This proposition affirms that free access to the soil is indispensable to any solution. This can hardly be the- case, because it is not from a scarcity of production that we suffer. The settlement of the people on the land is ostensibly with the object of providing them with employment, but the ultimate result will be an increase in production. I am, of coarse, fully aware that placing people on the land palliates the evil, but it can effect no cure. Everybody cannot go on the land ; the nature of things never intended that they should. Moreover, the cultivation of the soil is but a branch in the production of wealth, and the number that can be profitably employed is determined by economic conditions. The bulk of the people in this colony are not employed on the land, strange as it may appear, coasidering that New Zealand is essentially an agricultural and pastoral country; by far the greater number are workers employed by others, and whose income verges on a bare subsistence. To increase their wages obviously requires a different treatment to any form of land tenure or single tax. I had intended to have dealt more fully with this part of the question, but in the absence of a concrete example of the economic operation of the single tax I must defer it until Mr O’Began has had the opportunity of replying.— l am, etc., W, Sivebtsen. Dunedin, August 18,