THE ESSENTIAL REFORM.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 29 September 1926, Page 8

THE ESSENTIAL REFORM.

(To tlx© Editor.)

iSir, —The Star deserves to be congratulated by ev©ry well-wisher of the Advancement of this country for its lluminating articles on liow to advance. the progress of the dairying industry. To assist in that direction 1 Irrite to add to what your writer wrote ah'the Argentinian competition, which, xh my opinion, has done more to open the path for that progress to be attained than anything that has been secured by adopting a wet nurse policy from the ruling powers. It is this. While the economic science of Europe [with the exception of Denmark) was losing its prestige, and the majority of the nations were carrying on an jconomio war to perpetuate the present alienation, Argentina concluded a tee trade treaty with its one-time •nemy, Paraguay, and its diplomacy J! endeavouring to conclude similar reaties with its neighbours, Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, and Uruguay. Parallel ,-ith this diplomatic movement for conomic emancipation, the Parliament las passed legislation to take the .axes, rates, and part of the customs luties off the farming industry. Dennark has done the same, which is enibling the farmer to get the full value if his iabour, without being penalised o spoon-feed the manufacturers. Sir, hat being a truism, the question irises- How is it to be done in this ■ountry, when the farmer has been idvised that his sheet anchor is conrol of his produce by an elected body > . sa v without fear of contradiction hat to place the farming industry on if footing that will give it the full proluct of its labour we must adopt the, toiiey promulgated by P. E. Dove, who vas a naval officer,* an all-round ex»ert, a popular landlord at Lass wade, tear Edinburgh, about 1850. He was isked to state how he would assist he farmers; he replied as follows: ‘I would allocate the rents of tlie soil o the nation, for the service of the ation. Taxes must be derived from ome quarter or other, and if taxes ad always been derived from the ents of the soil there never would ave been any tax on industry, any ustom-house, any excise, or any of hose restrictive measures that ireress industry while they eminently ontribute to separate nation from naion, and do prevent the commercial ntercourse that would have abolished rar. National property there must be omewhere, and, assuredly, it is more list to take that property from the latural value of the soil than from lie individual fruits of labour. From ne or other it is, and must be, taken, nd if there would be an injustice in aking it from the impersonal rent of he soil, there is certainly more inListic© in'taking it from the profits of idividual exertion. This is the true, nd idie only true, theory of a nation — hat the soil belongs to it in perpetu:y, and never can be alienated from ; ; and he who gives the greatest ?nt for the soil becomes its cultiator, and pays the rent to the nation ir the benefit of the whole coramun;y. Then, hut not till then, will ibour reap its natural reward, the sward appointed by Providence in the ivine constitution! of the terrestrial conomy. Then will the welfare of ne be the welfare of all; then will len be banded together by a true itizenship; and then will the first rent step be taken towards that lightv brotherhood which springs from nr common parentage, and which is t once the promise and the prophecy F the Christian faith — That man to man the world o’er Shall brothers be for a’ that.” -I am, etc., ’ SENECA SIMPLEX. Tangarakau.