Grey River Argus and Blackball News MONDAY, JULY 17, 1922. TIME FOR A STOCK-TAKING.

Grey River Argus, 17 July 1922, Page 4

Grey River Argus and Blackball News

MONDAY, JULY 17, 1922. TIME FOR A STOCK-TAKING.

Delivered every moi ning in Gr< >uth K •-%, Hokitika, Ds»bsor., Walisend, Tayh.-* ,’iUc, Ngaberc fc netball, N'-’son Creek, Brunner, Te Kiugha Rut oman ii. Foerua, Inchbonnie. Patara. Ruru, Kaunnta. Kotuku- Mcana, Aratika, Runanga DunoHie, Cobden, Baxter s, Kokiri, Ahaura. Ikamatua, Stidwater, Waiuta. Reefton. Ross, Ruatapua, Mananin, H.iri Hari, Waiho Gorge, Weheka, Kewanui, Otira, Inangahua Junction, Westport, Waimangaroa, Denniston, Graidty, Millerton. Ngakawau. Hector,, Seddonvillc, Caps Foul wind, and

Some now and knotty questions have bc~< n pushed under the noses of New Zealand’s ruling class, since Labour’s distinctive rise as a political element began. One during the war was why lives, but not wealth, were commandeered by the State. No answer has arrived to date. One since has been as to why land has not been generally revalued. The answer is still cn route. A national stocktaking is long overdue. There is no basic wage, only cuts. A thorough ...overhaul of our economic machinery would reveal who arc getting the benefits from the land, whereon we are solemnly told the community depend and whereon the community’s money has been mostly spent for a long time past. Who are they that derive the chief benefits from the special help extended to landed interests? Half the settlers are hard up, we arc told, and, if the wartime profits arc gone, into whose pockets have they gone. A certain few, we fancy. The 'wool kings, butter

dealing middlemen, meat companies, and bankers did not get the lot. The plums probably fell to the crowd who sold the poor land at the fat prices, and who to-day demand in consequence a rebate and a reduction in their income and land taxes, to prevent starvation setting in before prices drop to their repurchase limit. Our deep sympathy goes out to the poor mortgagors who have had to repurchase their land at half what they sold it

for. as this must retard the next boom somewhat! The Shylocks have the best right to the mortgagees’ money,

because they can make it increase > quickest, both by getting wages below 1914 level and using the 30 mil- I lions they “hooked” in wages withheld when prices ruse, or cut when prices dropped. It is no wonder incomes large enough to be assessable for taxation rose from 14 to 35 millions in the seven years prior to 1921, or over 250 per cent, when we find* well over three millions going in 1921 to 600 landowners. The question then us to who is getting all the cream from the milk, and monopolising the benefits of industry in the country is obviously very pertinent and timely. The only attempt at an answer the Government makes is a side step. This is no time for a revaluation of land! The only lime is when land values drop to zero. The taxes, of course, are reduced now in anticipation of such a possibility, but the tax reduction accomplished, the fall is unnecessary. A good parallel is wage and income taxation reductions! It does not matter that private wealth doubled during the war in New Zealand, the country needs loss taxes and loss wages. L’etat e’est moi, says the land monopolist. The

moneyed class are the country. Not one in a doeen of the mon who went to the war has been settled on the land, but where is the asset which the country got for the 30 milions spent 1 ? The transfer of 700 odd soldier farms is no asset! When Massey and Co. ladled the millions out, land tax was | not fixed on the prices asked. On no! The next question, then, is whether the soldier or the shark was designed to be the main beneficiary! The Government does not say. It did, however, assure the world New Zealand was prosperous lately when it was shovelling shekels out to the tune o 1

30 or 40 millions! Where is it to-dav — we mean the money? It is not like the snows of last, year, surely? It the Minister of Lands claims the 738 soldier farms transferred to somebody else already have involved- no terrible loss, will he give an estimate of how many more such farms are likely to change hands at somebody’s ’expense shortly? Not he. He knows many are hard indeed to transfer, because the splashing of the millions around has caused the sharks to force values to a fictitious height, prohibiting any intending new settlers getting a chance. They have as good a chance of getting financed onto laud as the immigrants. The Government, lolls the workers it is bankrupt. It proves the opposite to the other class. \\ e are getting to be a noble state like ancient Rome. The land, . like the proletariat, is for the benefit of the

lati fundi ft—the owning class. That is the policy Mr Massey calls economy. Labour product must make good the squandered millions. The majority ot the ex-soldiers will have to sweat in providing such products for the few who can maintain a foothold in the ranks of the exploiters, and become capable hands at working the problem of the standard of living out in terms of mangels, turnips, chaff, and such fodder.