THE EMANCIPATION OF THE WAGEEARNER.

Evening Star, Issue 17080, 26 June 1919, Page 8

THE EMANCIPATION OF THE WAGEEARNER.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—By a clerical error in my last letter to you economic rent in New Zealand was represented' as amounting to £2O instead of £6O per wage-earner. Taking the present number of wage-earners as 250,000, and assuming that economic rent (or the price paid annual'y for use of tho bare land, apart from all land improvements) amounts to £17.000,000, it comes to more than £6O per wage-earner. This is the annual tribute which Labor pays to the land monopolists for permission to exist and labor on this part of-the earth, and similar tribute is paid in all tho other countries of Christendom. _lt would not be quite so bad if, after paying this tribute, land were provided for all workers to' meet their requirements, s( > that thc-y should not be compelled to labor for aud bo helplessly dependent or. employers of labor ; but no such provision is made, and the prices of land in and around the large' centres of population have become prohibitive. Land is provided for a comparative few in rural districts, but there is no administration of land in urba.n districts, where administration in the public interest is so mucli needed. Economic rent is the crc-.tion of the whole community, ;nd. therefore belorgs to the whole community. If the landholders have r.-„> light to the wage-earners thev have no right to economic rent. tor" land will produce nothing until labor is applied to it. Land value is really people value, and its value rises as population increases. For the public to take this value, therefore, is only to take their own. For landholders to take it is to take other men's earnings 'End give them nothing in return. I made a remark to one landholder about it. and he replied . "It is acceptance of a splendid annual gift from an extremely generous public." AVell. the extraordinary generosity of tho public has this among many other detrimental lesnlts—it makes it 'm possible for Capital and Labor to work together amicably. Labor constantly demands better remuneration, and Capital is unable to provide it. while rent takes so much of the labor product. A powerful writer on this subject says: "Economic rent is.a. toll levied upon Labor •constantly and continuously. Every blow of the hammer, every stroke of the pick, everv thrust of tlie shuttle, every throb c£ th© et-f.-am engine pays its tribute. . . . It robs the shivering of warmth, the hungry of food, the sick of medicine, the anxious of peace. It debases and embrutes, and embitters. It crowds families of eight ami ter. into a single squalid room; it fills the srin palace and the groggery with those who have no comfort in their homes. . . . It sends greed and all evil passions prowling through society as a hard winter drives the wolves to the abodes of men; it darkens faith_ in the human soul, and across the reflection of a just and merciful Creator draws the veil of a hard and blind and cruel fate! It is not a robbery in the past ; it is_ a Tobbery in the present —a robbery that deprives "of their birthright the infants that are now coming into the world ! Why should wo hesitate about making short work of such a system?" . Our political parties have thus far hesitated, and the Churches have clone nothing to- sum- them to action. The New Zealand* Welfare League promoters omitted land value taxation from the. draft of •their political platform. "Will the coming conference, of delegates from 19 branches give it first place in the platform? .This league is formed "to bring Capital and Labor together'' and make them good friends for evermore. Well, the taking of economic rent for the_ nation is the very reform to make Capital and Labor the best of friends for ever. How strange that this great financial reform was omitted from the draft of the league's platform. Surely that draft must have been drawn up very hastily. But Mr Harper, the league's" able orgnnds-a*. will no doubt help the conference of delegates to make the platform complete. Anyway. we shall soon see the platform as amended by the conference. I believe the Labor party have now ventured to place in their platform a proposal to add Id, or even 2d, to the Land Tax. Will the Protestant Political Association be - mere courageous than the Labor party I hope so. Perhaps before election day these parties will all d-eelare themselves'in favor of faxing land values up to the hilt, and I shall not h<- surprised, if they all declare that they were always firm and most zealous supporters of this reform'. —I am, etc., E. T. Evaxs. June 26.