THE SINGLE TAX.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16569, 5 June 1914, Page 4

THE SINGLE TAX.

TO THE EDITOR ; Sir, —I do not imagine that all the political economists are on the side of Mr n itliy, but if they are so much the worso for Mr Withy, for, as lluskin 6aiu long ago, “ Political economy is neither an art nor a science.” Disraeli onco described Mr Gladstone as “intoxicated with the exuberance of life own verbosity.’’ Mr Withy appears to bo inebriated with the gospel and jargon of Henry George. That poverty is a curse and disgrace, to civilisation and to Christianity, Henry George proves most eloquently and truly, and also that the tramp is the corollary of the millionaire. Put, strange to say, Henry George “ would put no limit to the acquisition of wealth ”; neither 1 would he “ place any restriction upon the amount of land anyone could hold.” His chief dogma, or doctrine, was that i the private ownership of land is the | root of all evil. His simple remedy j was the nationalisation of the land, j In order to effect this ho proposed i to appropriate the whole rent cf the i land after deducting the value of im- ; provemonts. lie considered that the j rights of the landowners to their imj provements ought to be “ sacredly guarded,” but in the name of righteousness and justice all landowners ought to bo robbed of their private property in land. Henry George said: “It is not necessary to confiscate tho land, it is only necessary to confiscate the i rent.” But, in spite of tho eloquence ; of Henry George, to confiscate tho rent | means not only to confiscate the land, but also the mortgages. To abolish all taxation except upon the land, and to appropriate rent by taxation, is to nationalise tho land by robbing all landowners, both small and great. It is 1 an absurd idea that in order to prevent land monopoly, it is necessary to rob all the small landowners and mortga- . gees of their privato earnings invested | in. land, although no restriction should be placed upon the amount of land anyone could hold.

. Mr Withy, however, says that “ the single tax, in reality, is not a tax at all,” and that it “does not stand for tho same thing as land nationalisation.” So, Mr Withy contradicts Henry George—sometimes. But when, in his “Confiscation” letter (“Lyttelton Times,” September 16, 1912), Mr Withy said that tho single tax was confiscation of rent, and that it was high time that tho unimrroved rent value of the land in New Zealand, amounting to over £9,000,000 a year, over £9 per head, or £45 per family of five, was confiscated, and also that “the mortgagees would pay their share,” he clearly showed what tho single tax meant. The question was not whether he would do it instantly, or whether it could be dono by steps of one penny in the pound increase in the land tax for twelve years, or once in every ten years for ono hundred and twenty, years! Tho question was. whether it is just and right to abolish all taxation except upon land, and to confiscate the land values by appropriating tho rent. Mr Withy often quotes Lloyd George. Mr Lloyd George said that “ lje had never been a single taxor, and nothing lie had ever hoard conveyed to his mind tho remotest possibility that ho would ever bo a single taxer. He did not believe that you conVI regenerate any industry—least of all, the agricultural industry—by taxing it.” (“Dally Mail” Year Book, 1913). But Mr Withy thinks bo knows better! Rates are a tax on land and capital, to pay interest and sinking funds for the owners’ ben°fit. It would bo no advantage to tho owners to abolish tho rates on the capital values, if the selling values of their land is to be destroyed by tho “ imposition ” of a single tax of Is in the' £ on the land. Mr Withy contradicts himself about the £25 a year Customs duties, said to be paid bv a working man with £125 a year wages. He now says that “ without allowing a penny piece for the enormous increase in the cost of. New Zealand protected goods, because of the taxes, there is a Customs burden of at least £5 5s per head, or £26 ss. for the average family of five.” But Mr Withy is not “ going to waste time and space” in giving us partioluars of his estimates. Tho truth 'is that he cannot do it! But beyond the £5 5s per head Mr Withy sa ( vs that as wo pay £4OOO or £SOOO a 'year in the tax of £1 per

ton on imported flour, the price of the odd 100,000 tons of New Zealand milled flour is raised by £1 per ton, that is £IOO,OOO to the consumer. In the first place the amount of duty on flour paid in 1912 was under £2200. Next, if the price of home-grown flour was thus raised then the duty of £1 per ton paid on twenty-eight tons of imported potatoes no doubt raised the price of tho 100,000 odd tons of New Zealand potatoes by £IOO,OOO, which is absurd! , But if it wore true it would only add | about 4s per head to Mr Withy’s £5 j 5s estimate. lam surprised that Mr I Withy cannot understand tho simple fact that if a merchant and a tradesman doing business together bought and sold a ton of cocoa four times a year they would make four profits in tho same capital, price and duty (not out of the same ton of cocoa 1)

Like Henry George, Mr Withy admits that the State ought to issue the bank notes. Therefore, Mr Withy ought to be able to understand that the State alone ought to issue and control tho whole paper currency—and get the profit. For, as Macleod says, “ Deposits are merely bank notes in disguise”; “bank notes and cheques are identical in law and economics ”; and “ bank credits in the form of bank notes, deposits and cheques aro equivalent to the creation of so much additional capital.” So it is possible that a State bank might have saved the country many millions of debt, mortgages and interest and might have increased tho revenue by millions, saving so much taxation. But Mr Withy says that the land monopolists would have added the profit to their rents. Strange then that the monopolists were not in favour of a State bankl And it is strange that Mr Withy who wants to confiscate tho whole rent ea””' 1 ' understand that the State could justly claim the increased rent value by tair land taxation.

There is no just reason why the land should not be taxed without exemption to repay all loans expended in increasing its value—and the interest. There is no reason why bankers, brewers and flour-millers should be exempted from rates and taxes. Graduated property taxes could automatically .check all monopolies of wealth. Bonuses might be better than Customs duties. But

where is the money to. come from? There is about £4,000,000 of interest

a year to be paid on our total publio indebtedness. There are about £100,000,000 of registered mortgages, and it is said £50,000,000 of unregistered. The interest would be over £9,000,000 a year. I think Mr Withy had better give us a satisfactory estimate of that £26 5s a year before ho tries his hand at tho next budget,— I am, etc., J. MILES VERRALL. SwannanCa, June 2. TO THE EDITOR. Sir,-—My attention has been called to a letter of Miles Verrall which appeared in your paper some time ago, containing some references to myself, I have no desire to advertise Mr Verrall; ho has been defeated and discredited so often that his only claim to merit is that of a chopping block. He cannot even defend his own Stato pawnshop proposal from attacks While the land monopolists paid only £728,000 odd total to the . revenue, the working people contributed over £3,000,000, the tobacco duty alone exceeding that of the total land taxes. As to his claim that the single tax will injure the working farmer, that is untrue, because it is a tax upon the monopoly value of land. The tarirer’s land has little or no monopoly value. Tho fact that he must work it to earn his bread proves that he cannot afford to withhold it from use. The. small farmer will gain by the adoption of the single tax, 90. per cent of them will pay less taxation than they do now. They need have no fear of Mr Verrall’s bogey that the mortgage will be foreclosed upon their farms if the land tax is increased, becaire it will not bo in the mortgagee’s interest to do so. If he worked the farm himself he could not make any more than the tenant. The single, tax will fall on the mortgagee, and it twill eat. his head off if he tries to held it idK He trill have to extend the p°riod for the interest payment that will enab'e the tenant to liquidate his debt and became a real freeholder. It is h-'ph land prices and the mortgage blight that ruin- the farmer, and the single tax is the only remedy for those evils.—l am. etc., . F. W. BURKE. ;f