THE SINGLE TAX.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16566, 2 June 1914, Page 4

THE SINGLE TAX.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Mr Morgan AAhllinms says that I am inconsistent in stating that land monopoly is the “ root monopoly ” while admitting that a shipping combine may exist in spite of the sea being free to all; but your correspondent overlooks the fact that though the sea may be freo to all the land is not. If the shipping companies have a monopoly it is, in my. opinion, a capitalistic one, and is due to the artificial value which money assumes under present conditions. Does it not stand to reason that if nine people out of every ten are denied access to the source of all wealth Die mere possession of wealth or capital must become a monopoly? The inflated value attaching to money as the result of “ the fencing in of the land and the fencing out of the people” is quite sufficient to account for the existence of monopolies in undertakings which require large capital. Mr Williams does not deny that private ownership of the sea (by persons other than the. shipowners) would wipe out the shipping companies’ monopoly, so I presume he admits it. That is a point your readers should carefully note. AVith regard to Mr AVilliams’s road illustration, I must confess I am not quite clear as to his meaning, but if 1 understand him aright he claims that tho man who owned the improvements on a road would be able to exploit the irers of the thoroughfare and that the application of single tax conditions would not prevent him. Let us see. Supposing the road-owner had created improvements costing £SOOO and that lie was levying toll uoon the road-users to the amount of £IOOO per annum, the application of single tax principles would result as fellowsA valuation (based on a revenuo of £IOOO a year, and taking money ns worth 5 per cent) would give £20,000 as the "capital value” of this man’s "property.” The improvements being £SOOO, tlio ‘ 1 unimproved value” would be £15,000, and on this latter sum the single tax of £750 per annum would bo payable to the State. This would leave the road-owner a. net revenue of £250, which would give him the market rate of interest on his improvements and not a penny more. AA'hcre, then, would bo his

monopolyP His exploiting power would be ml, and if, by reason of increase of population or other cause (apart from the owner’s activities), his revenue went up, the tax would fellow, leaving always the bare interest on the £SOOO as the return to the owner. It niust not be assumed from the above illustration that single-taxers would countenance the private ownership of roads or other public utilities; on the contrary, they hold that those things which are necessarily monopolies should be publicly owned and administered by tho State.

Air Miles YerraH, instead of replying to the numerous points dealt with in my two letters, each a column in length, devotes some six inches or seven inches of space to me, and of that space about five inches is taken up with a new point dealing with tha rights of Chinese to New Zealand landf and a quotation from Shakespeare. In other words, he runs clean away from the argument and endeavours to "side track” the issue. In this I do not intend to assist him by taking a trip to China, Japan and Hindustan. I shall be quite ready to answer his new questions when he deals with the old ones, most of which he himself raised. Has he discarded his theory that the fencing in of a bit of land is inconsistent with the single tax, or is be prepared to support it? This is merely one of the many points upon wh’ch Air Yerrall observes a profound, if judicious, silence, in spite of all my efforts to draw him out.—T am. etc.,

C. H. NIGHTINGALE.