SINGLE TAX DEBATE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16666, 26 September 1914, Page 10

SINGLE TAX DEBATE.

TO THE EPITOII. Sir, —In view of Mr Miles Verrall’s characteristic reply to my last, I shall be obliged if you will kindly publish my letter (enclosed) in your valuable paper. It will be seen that there is no foundation for his assertion that I do not like to defend my own words that “ the single tax is in reality not a. tax at all,” or that ” the single tax does not stand for the samo tiling as land nationalisation.” I am always prepared to defend my own opinions,, but not Mr Verrall’s very distorted conceptions of my opinions, nor such a misleading fragment divorced from its context as he suggested as the subject of the debate.

I do not question Mr Verrall’s suggestion that the white feather has been shown in regard to this matter, but it certainly has,hot been shown bv me. I have by me as I write the white feather that Mr Verrall has shown; and, indeed, the only reason for more than one debate is his very evident reluctance to meet me in Christchurch, the natural place for the debate to take place.—l am, etc.,

ARTHUR WITHY. Birkenhead, Auckland, September 21. (Enclosure.) Mr J. Miles Verrall, Swannanoa. Dear Sir.—Your letter of the 10th inst. duly to hand. I shall be very pleased to meet you in debate at Rangiora and (or) Kaiapoi and Christchurch; and if it meets with your wishes, I will arrange for tho debates to take place at, say, Rangiora and Christchurch as soon after the 24tli inst. as possible. I would like both debates to bo held in the same week so as to save time and travelling expenses. It is usual in such debates for each party to pay his share of the expenses, or his share of the deficit, if any, when a charge is made for admission; and I think the League ooncedes all that it can fairly be asked to concede when it takes the wholo risk of a deficit and agrees that the whole of the proceeds, if any, over and above hire of hall and advertising, shall go to tho Patriotic Fund. I cannot, therefore, accept your suggestion that the whole of the proceeds should go to the Patriotic Fund and that the League should shoulder the whole of the expenses. Further, while I am prepared to debate the issue cither in the form suggested by mo in my last, or, say,': in the form “ that the single tax is the only just and proper method of raisingf publio revenues," you can hardly seriously expect me to debate such a fragment torn from its context as you suggest.—Yours very truly, ARTHUR WITHY.