THE LAND QUESTION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17560, 17 August 1917, Page 2

THE LAND QUESTION.

REPLY TO « RUSTICUS:"

to ins rarros. Sir,—l have read with interest " Rusticus's " long letter on the above question which appeared in last Saturday's "Times." He says it is a good many years siuce he first maintained that the Government land purchase scheme would be a failure, but I might remind him that there were others who pointed this out at the very beginning —the single taxers. "Rusticus" treats the "land question" as a country problem (merely), and this is where ho makes his first mistake. He also fails to appreciate the real rights of the people if -he thinks (as he evidently does) that the maintaining of a majority of the people on rural lands - would eradicate the evils of land ownership. His scheme at the best is a palliative. If one wants to cleanse the Augean stable the operation must be a drastic ono. The muck must be carted clean away and the building hosed and swept. No sprinkling of eau de cologne, will be effective. So. with, private property in land (as "we know it); it must bo wiped out absolutely. We are told that in France twothirds of the population are in the rural districts. Does "Rusticus" wish to indicate that the land question in Franco, is settled? If so. I am. sorry for those who think it worth while to trouble about that question. _ Wages in manufacturing industries in that country have been stated on good authority to average 23s per employee per week, while in England, where the land tenure is a crying evil, and, the rural districts largely depopulated, the. wages are 283 3d. ..

I do not know what are the average wages in France in all branches of production, but considering that workmen in secondary industries receive 23 per cent less than they do in England —:the shocking example of the abuses of landlording—and that all wages are based in the last resort upon that of agricultural labourers, the "settling" of the land, question in France (if it is settled!) has not improved conditions as a whole as compared with Britain, where one-fourth of. the entire population live at or below the decent-living : line. Is this what "Rusticus" wants reproduced hi New Zealand in the course of time?

Early in the nineteenth century one John Jacob Astor bought some land for 4000 dollars. Ho lived to see it worth 4,000,000 dollars, and his descendants still hold it, the present value. being 400,000,000 dollars. This was a " one man. one holding" transaction. How would our friend's plan settle this matter aright? There is no evidence to show that the Astors' land was not at all times put to its best appropriate use; in any case Government regulations, such as are embodied in leaseholds, would have made no difference, nor would they have saved the community, of which Astor was a member, from being compelled to pay his descendants a rent based on a* value of 41(0,000,000 dollars, they, the community, receiving nothing in return. In a word, wnat "Rusticus" proposes is a sc/ieme which will, if it works out • as he hopes, increase somev/hat the number of landowners. Instead ol th© whole of New Zealand being owned by 10 per cent of the people, the percentage will be, let us say, 15. How would that help the other 85? The rental value of New Zealand lands is about twelve millions steiling. What is "Rusticus" going to do about that? Nothing? Then ho is not going to "settle" any land' question. He mentions the single tax, and say 3 the theory is all right, but objects to it» because it couid not ba put into (practice without hardship to farmers. One ccalcl have said the very same thing in 1562 with regard to the slavery question in the "U.S.A. There were fanners (planters) there who were struggling, who had invested their savings m negroes in full accord with the laws of the country, and so cur friend, had he been on the spot, would have been telling Lincoln that his theory of abolition' was all right, but' "it was too iate in the. day to put it into practice." This leads up to ■ the. question of Confiscation with a big " O." Single taxers are used to having this term of contumely thrown at them. The point is, however, just this: No one abjthis times of day can take up any position on the land question without being a coufiscator. If "Rusticus" is against the single tax he is a confiscator of wages. The reply of Honry George to tho Duko of Argyll on this point is worth.quoting (in part) and leaves the upholder of land-ownership destitute of argument, at any rate the Duke made no attempt to defend himself. The Prophet of' San Francisco said:—"Those who say it would be unjust for the people to res'ame their natural rights in the .land without compensating present holders confound right and : wrong as flagrantly as did they who held it a crime in the slave to run away without first paying his owner his market value. They have never formed a clear idea of what property in land means. • It means not merely a continuous exclusion of some Ptv>nlo from the element which it is plainly the intent of Nature that) they' all should enjoy, but it involves a continuous confiscation of labour and the results of labour. The Duke of Argyll has, we say, a large income drawn from land. But is the income really drawn, from land? Were there no men on his land, what income couid the Duke get from it. save such ns his own hands produced? Precisely as if drawn from siaves. this incomo represents an appropriation of the earnings of labour. The effect of permitting the Duke to

.treat the 'and as his property is to make go'many other Scotsmen, in whole or in part,; his serfs—to .compel them to ..labour for him without .pay, or; to enable him to take- from. them their earnings without return. Surely if the Duke will loftk at the matter in this way, he mu3t see that the iniquity'is not in abolishing an institution which permits one man to plunder, others, but in continuing it. He must'see that any claim of land-owners to compen r Ration is not a claim to payment for what they have previously, taken, but to payment for what they might yet take, precisely as would be the claim of the slaveholder—the true character of which appears in tho fact that he would demand more compensation for a stiong slave, out of whom, he, might yet get much work, than for a decrepit one, out of whom he had already forced nearly all the labour he could yield." The single taxor is a "confiscator" also. He confiscates the power of the landowner to appropriate wages without rendering any service hi. return, ana in the process he (the single, taxer) must necessarily confiscate money which people have paid former landowners for this power of levying tribute. There is a big difference between the _ two "confiscations." The one lays tribute on wages for all time. The other confiscation is not inherent in the single tax system, but is due to the necessity for displacing an inequitable and immoral system, and is limited to the period of transition. Will "Rusticus" deny that, under single tax conditions from the start, New Zealand would be able (war apart) to pay all State and municipal expenses without any taxation whatever, and even to extend State and municipal utilities beyond their present ecope. The word single tax iSj of course, a misnomer; economic rent when received into the public, treasury being, not a tax, but. a payment for value conferred by the State upon the payer of the rent.

It is monstrous to suppose that a system which' would enable a country to carry on the functions of government without any taxation, and that, even more efficiently than in this Dominion in peace times, cannot be put into practice-'because, forsooth, wo have gone on the wrong road in' the. past. The negro slavery question and the land ownership question are similar. Each stands for the ownership of some men by other men. Does not private property in land mean that the landlord owns the men who aro so _placed that they must derive their subsistence from his'land?. If so,.is not that sentence sufficient to indicate the immorality of the system?

With regard to_ the hardship and injustice which it is said would under single tax to the straggling farmer, I fancy this, like the premature/' report of Mark Twain's death, is greatly exaggerated. Will " Rusticus " state a case and give me the following details :-—(l) Total worth of the farmer; (2) number of his dependents; (3) rates and income tax (4) unimproved value of land; (o) capital value of ditto; (6) amount of mortgages (if any}? An actual case would be preferable, but failing this a typical case will serve the purpose. With the above information I will indicate the advantages and disadvantages accruing to the farmer from the operation of the single tax. For every case of hardship entailed to '• the " struggling "_ farmer in the system I propose I will give "Rusticus" two cases of greater hardship directly attributable to the present system of land ownership. * We are told that the single tax will not protect the small"holding—from : the land shark. Will our friend tell me how such land, taxed at the rate of Is for. every £1 of unimproved value, oould I be held or trafficked in by a land shark? ' If it could not be so held what power would the land shark havo over the genuine farmer? —I am, etc.. RADICAL.

.TO THE EDITOR. 1 Sir, —Tour correspondent " Rusticus" in his letter of August 11 advocates " one man —ono holding "■■ as tho panacea to cure the economic ills of this country. This scheme,; if properly applied, he implies, will give us a larger rural population, and with it_ all the social and educational facilities necessary for a prosperous country. While your correspondent writes at great length" in a general way he says very little of the scheme he advocates. Would it be asking too.much of hini to give your readers a few working-details of the "one man—one holding" scheme? It would appear that a man with, a holding of a few acres might not so readily agree to -"'Rustieus's " sohome as one holding, say/ 13.000 acres. Would your . correspondent agree to leave undisturbed the holder of the larger acreage? Your readers mav think that "Rusticus" is the holder of a large holding. Will he tell them?—l am, etc., AGRICOLA.