LAND MONOPOLY.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume II, Issue 132, 21 May 1912, Page 5

LAND MONOPOLY.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir. —Permit me to reply to your remarks on Land Monopoly and Taxation. You say that I would make the farmer pay the whole of the taxation. This is not correct. Farming land is cheap compared with city and town lands. One foot of land in the business part of Heretaunga street is worth, say, £6O. That is to say it would pay as much as an acre of valuable farming land. Again, the unimproved value of Auckland City is ecpial to the value of the whole of the land between Auckland and the North Cape. Yet Greater Auckland is hut a spec on the map compared with the land in the great peninsula. Of course, farmers would pay thc tax in proportion to the value of the land they owned, but the ordinary small farmer would save more in indirect taxes now levied on clothing and the tools of production than he would pay in a direct tax. This settles the point with the farmer who owns his land. The bulk of the settlers, however, do not own their holdings outright. 1 have already said that the price is so great that a man who could but a decent farm outright could live on the interest oT (ns money without going farming. A j tax that would fall on the unimprov--1 cd value of all land would be just as I heavy on the large areas not being put to their best use as on the inI tensely cultivated selections. The I former would have to either put it to i better use or sell, while the latter will not feel the tax when they save ; twice as much, in c ustoms taxes. I You say that Labour without Capital is powerless. In the beginning, sir, i Labour started without capital. 1 Moreover, capital is but stored up ; labour. The meaning cf the word | capital is "that part of the product of labour which is used for the furIthcr production of wealth.” You i speak of the man with a pick. Even ’ a pick is capital. I know the Social- : ists say that we land value taxers : are half-way men. and that capital ias well as land values must be nationalised. Seeing that nearly all forms of capital decay in value more I ranidly out of use than in use, it is scarcely likely that, the capitalists i would corner the instruments of production while a considerable portion of tlie cheaper tools of production are in the hands of the landless workers. Land, ho wet er. tml.ke engm-.-s, machines, and other forms o> capital, increases in value if held out of use. Tb f r<» n.re a fow riHv exceptions, but the truth of Ihe ah(\e statement is obvious. Then what do we land value taxers propose •’ Simply to take taxc« eff labour, the product of labour, and the exchange of the products <>f labour, making production .Hill exchange absolutely free and making those who holu lanu return back to the rightful owners, the people, a fair annual tax according to the value < f the privilege specially aeeciui.i t<> them. hut allow ing the holders to improve then- properties as much as they like without mcieas- : ing the tax, thus penalising industry. This is the ductiiue made clear by Henry George and now advocated bv tens cf thousands in all parts of the world. Even China has dec.d.'d to adept it. If. Imv.excr. it can be ,L.,wn that it is w.-mm. I "di abandon it. Re- the unimproved question, we know ti nt the qtu-lim was with ' us three vears ago. and we ougnt to i know that it will be with us again wl’wi the borrowing craze is ever. ■ n.k < -■.-,. tax land x allies.—l am. E. STEVENSON. Hast mas. May 2*>. 1912. I Replit .1 to clsewhere. — Ed. •H.B.T.J