STATE OWNERSHIP OF LANDS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9436, 6 August 1889, Page 3

STATE OWNERSHIP OF LANDS.

TO THE EDITOR, Sir, —-We now have " Single Tax"* explaining Dr. Hooper's utterances by "the light of Henry George. Having told us that this tax on land values would be increased till it absorbed the ground rent, "Single Tax" goes on to show that the landlords could nob raise the rent under certain circumstances. Why talk about landlords ? There cannot be any landlords when the State has appropriated the ground rent. We shall all be tenants of the State. Henry George uses no ambiguous language. He says, " What; the farmer who owns his own farm would lose would be the selling value of his land." (1). " It is only necessary to tax land up to its full value. Do that, and without any talk of dispossessing landlords without. use of that ugly word ' confiscation,' without any infringement of the just rights of property, the land would become virtually the people's, while the landlords would be left the absolute and unqualified possessors ox their deeds of title and conveyance." (2). Landowners of New Zealand, mark this when you hear people talking of a land tax ; know that it means the beginning of the end of private ownership of land. That this tax is to be increased till you pay full rental value to the Government. Henry George says :—" This is precisely the sarnie thing as to formally take possession of it" (3). "Single Tax" uses many words, and explains at great length that the unimproved value of land in New Zealand is nothing, and yet this tax on unimproved land values will enable us to dispense with property tax, Customs' duties, and all other taxes. I must leave this problem to the "unemployed to figure out." I have no time for it. Crown lands can be* got in many parts of the country under the perpetual leasing system. Herekino is quite as accessible as many of the settlements were 25 or 30 years ago. Numbers of the early settlers, with their mothers and sisters, their wives and children, had to make a voyage lasting sometimes three or four days, in a dirty 20-ton firewood cutter. They had to carry their household goods on their backs along a surveyor's line for years. No paternal Government paid them for building: their whares or felling the bush on their sections. Isolation from all the amenities of civilised life was endured, that they might own a farm of their own. " Single Tax's" harangue to the unemployed would have had no effect on these early settlers; they would have probably doubted the morality of it. They did not want land to squab on. Under the feudal system, which " Single Tax" says was a rough approximation to the land tax, we read, in documents now extant, of men being sold or exchanged along with the land they cultivated (4). We also read " that the tillers of the soil, who held land under the lord, and who, besides paying a small money ground rent, were obliged to perform certain arduous services to the lord, such as to plough [the lord's land for so many days in the year, to carry his corn to market, to provide a cartoon occasions, &c. . . They might not even go away from the manor on which they were born, and they might not marry •without the lord's license, and for that license they always had to pay" (5). Their cottages were _ little better than pigstyes. Their clothing was of that sort which does not give warmth and comfort- to him who is compelled to wear leather breeches and jerkin. Their food was so disgustingly coarse that if such was set before a modern labourer he would experience nausea. And this feudal system was a rough approximation to the single tax. My fervent hope is that we may nob return to such barbarism. Like the Cherokee Indians, tribal communism in land and many moveable kinds of property prevailed among the Maoris. But it would indeed be a retrograde step in our civilisation to return to the social level of the Maori or the Cherokee Indian. There is no doubt the great incentive to settlement in _ this country has been, and is now, private ownership of land. I have nob been able to learn how our friends, the mortgagees, will fare when the State has taken possession. Surely no robbery will be committed in their case ?— am, to., , Matthew M. ■ K.nuf.BßiDE, Mangece, 3rd August, 1889. (1) "Social Problems," p. 290. , (2) " The Land Question," p. 32. , (3) " The Land Question," p. 32. - . (4) By a charter Archbishop Uray grants to Robert de Barkeston a bovate of land ■ which Nicholas de Fonte (Nicholas, a serf born to rus inaaior," living: at the Spring) with a toft-(fche house at the S prins) with all its appurteiices, aw! with said Nicholas, in exchange for a toft which the said Robert de Barkeston has in Sherbuni.-" History of Sherburn and Cawood, W. WinsATKR. (5) "The Nineteenth Century, feh., 1583. Rqv.Dr. Jessw. ""