THE H.B. TRIBUTE. WEDNESDAY, NOV. 20, 1912. “LET THE LAND PAY.”

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume II, Issue 297, 20 November 1912, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUTE. WEDNESDAY, NOV. 20, 1912. “LET THE LAND PAY.”

Ova Napier evening contemporary, j ‘ in its editorial of yesterday, renews|' its blindfold • tilt at the laml-owne; ! this time whether he be big or little. J i The article in question gives figures j ! —which, for lack of reliable data, i 1 we will for present purposes only!' take to be somewhere nearly correct t —purporting to show the effect oil < the extended Old Age Pensions; i scheme er pauperism in England and! 1 Wales. The statistics which* ourh contemporary professes to quote go I t to show that in that particular part j' of the Lmtcd Kingdom the'number h of paupers in 1910 was 196.000!; (“Hazell’s Annual” says there were i 270,000 indoor paupers alone, and i 539,000 more who received outdoor t relief, but never mind that) and that ! in 1912 there were only 59,000. We t presume these figures are intended ( to refer to the position for the fiscal t years ending 31st March, 1910, and 11 31st March, 1912. respectively. The waiter then goes on to infer that the t contributors to the Pool' Rates ini- t posed to provide for paupers have _• been proportionally relieved. This I proposition we will for the present also accept, although we have figures t before us for an earlier brief period I which lead us to do so with con- ) siderable mental reservation. The j article then proceeds with .a rational , criticism of the shamefully excessive ■ cost of administration of the amount ( levied, a blot on the Poor Law syg- j tern, which has long been fully j recognised and should long since have been remedied. At the same r time we are not given any figures as t to the cost of administering the Old Age Pension scheme, but doubtless, j. if available, they would comjiare ? more than favourably. Our con- j temporary then comments on the injustice of a change which has shifted from property a portion of the burden imposed upon it by the ( Poor Laws and placed it upon the general revenue of the country —and a thus “the pool- are made to provide pensions for the poor.” By property we take it our contemporary, some- > what loosely, as is its wont, menus D land and its adjuncts, which _we j j believe are alone b.c.ble for paynfcnl | j of the poor rate. A similar eom-i: plaint is made that in New Zealand. | 1 by the epemtien of cur own Old j c Age Pensions Act, a similar injustice | l has been pernet rated. All this isM taken to be ”another justification of the Lloyd George gospel of land 1 taxation.” and finally the writer ‘ savs. “Old ago pensinos.” both in ■ the Old (\:mt'.y •.ml C thN. “should have been made a special charge upon property, and no fairer method of doing this could be devised than by the imposition of a land tax.” Now. that phrase “the poor providing for the poor" is a very fine . one were it entirely applicable, but . as we all know it is opposite, anil especially in free-trade England, j. only in a very medified degree. In the United Kingdom the genera' public rexenue for ’9lO-11 raised by ( taxation of ail kinds was some 175 ( millions. Ct this sum practically < nothing is imposed by way of (. us- < toms or excise duties on what are absolute necessities of life. Tobacco certainly has come to be what we may cail an ■'artificial necessity," < and it furnishes duties amounting to some 17 millions, but oi this the well-to-do pay by much the greater pro- i ' portion. In New Zealand, of course. I ( the general body of the population! 1 paj' some Customs duties on neees- | ‘ saries and comforts, of life, but the; few really poor among us bear but nn t insignificant proportion of this. Ami ! now for the suggestion that the j’■ whole Old Age Pension Fund should < be raised by taxation on land .alone, ’ and for the application of the “Lloyd 1 George gospel.” It is a well founded 1 principle among our political I economists that a shifting of the : incidence of old-established taxa-j 1 tion on property, howmver unjust in | ’ its inception, is a mistake. Propertyowners have acquired their- property!’ with their eyes open to its existing ! ; burdens, and its value has been established on that basis. Therefore, i in so far as the removal of portion of the Poor Rates in England and of the Charitable Aid Rates in New} Zealand from land is concerned, wep might be inclined to say this prin- i , ciple has been wrongly disturbed. But we have already had occasion m these columns to point cut that Mr. Lloyd George has so far learnt Ins . lesson that, with reference to agri-1 cultural lands at any rate, he admits! the imposition of fresh taxation to] be a mistake. Through an authoris-j ed mouthpiece he publicly anneune-1 ed this some time back, and further j stated his newly-formed conviction | that the farmer was to be festered } and encouraged and not harassed by | ever-changing and ever-increasing [ taxat ion. Probably he has in his I ( mind gone further than this and felt , that no harm could come to the | community were the agriculturist I allowed the slight relief incidental I to the institution of the Old Age j Pension scheme. With regard to | urban lands, our contemporary has} never yet shown any reason why it i should bear more than a fair share.; with other classes of property (in the , wider sense), of the taxation neees- j sarv to provide for public expend;- ' ture. It can only reiterate Hie j parrot cry "Make the land pay- ;