CORRESPONDENCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8683, 28 September 1891, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

NEW ZEALAND " NATIVE LAND ... SETTLEMENT COMPANY, TO THE EDITOR.

Sir,ln the Herald 'of the 21th instant there appears a sub-leader and a letter from Mr. James Mackay in the uhove connection. Under a misapprehension of the facts, it is stated, amongst other things, that in the event of a sale of the Company's, land at Gisborne, sis advertised, taking pkicS, there will inevitably be trouble with the natives when the purchasers seek to enter into occupation. With reference to this I have to say that the titles to the blocks advertised for sale on the '2(>fch proximo are clean and unimpeachable, and the question of delivery aud occupation is not one that need deter intending purchasers.—l am, etc., J. C. llanna, Manager Bank of New Zealand Estates Company (Limited). Auckland, 20th September, 1891. WHAT HAVE THEY DOME? TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —The colony's representatives are returning to their homes, and, at the news, a great sigh of relief has gone uo from the whole country. There would not be a pang of regret if some Cromwell should arise and make it imposible for the majority to meet again in pursuit of mischief and pelf. What have they done? They have dragooned the weak minority, and assisted to maintain in o'lice a Government opposed to democratic reform-in the real sense, such opposition being founded upon the easily-ascertained fact that democratic institutions of the successful type would make short work of the schemes of such a Government. They have, in gross violation of the principles of the constitution, re-enacted the Public Revenues Act, giving dispensing powers so unconstitutional and subversive of public liberty and control of the purse as would have rejoiced the soui of James 11., of infamous memory. These dispensing powers include the right of- spending £100,000 annually in the very teeth of the people's representatives under the avowedly unconstitutional head of " unauthorised expenditure," and the monstrous prerogative of pledging tho country's credit by the issue of deficiency bills up to £900,000 without the authority of Parliament. Not satisfied with this these suitable allies of Stuart and Tudor despotism added to the betrayal of public liberty and constitutional rights a scandalous vote for "Contingencies" under different heads, amounting to nearly £100,000. Yet these ; men have the audacity or folly to call them--1 selves "Liberals." Tear away the veil of sham from such a majority, and it stands ! revealed as a strenuous opponent of the true ! working of democratic institutions. Electors are well aware of the limitations which other democracies have wisely put upon the debtcreating and spending powers of their Legislatures. This majority knows and admits the necessity of such safeguards, #but out-Herods 'Herod in destroying them. What have they done? In violation- of their hustings 1 pledges they have sought by Act of Parliament, to wring from the public Treasury a salary of £2-10 per year per head, for three months' work, and that sum freed from payment of their just debts. They ignoininiously failed in this scheme, thanks to the intervention of the Legislative Council, and thereupon they deputationised the Premier to flood the Upper House with gentlemen of their own self-sacrificing stamp. They have been mad enough to raise the Question of taxing bondholders, aocwithstanding that the colony has to go into the London market next year in order to renew about four and a-half millions of its loan, the probable result being that the rate of interest -will not be to our advantage. Pledged to resist further borrowing, they have laid hands upon sinking funds set aside towards payment of our debts, and have rendered the interest burden £34,000 heavier this year than last. Securing their elections upon sham j professions of retrenchment, they have in'' creased 'both the expenditure and the public debt. They have passed a Land and Income Assessment Bill, which the Government hesitates to put into operation. Their essays in legislation have made it evident that their best place is at home. A sufficient commentary upon their attempts to restore confidence and prosperity is contained in the extraordinary and continuous withdrawal of capital from * enterprise. The financial history of the past six months is without a parallel in the history of the colony or of any civilised country. On the Hist March after the first session of tho present Parliament, the banks of issue, exclusive of savings banks, contained free and fixed deposits exceeding every form of bank advances by £ol):),5L ) 0. On 30th J line, the vagaries of the second session had raised this glut of idle money to the surprising excess of £1,280,033 over advances. The exodus has not ceased, inasmuch as for the first seven months of the ! year departures have exceeded arrivals by I #39!). So much for* the truth of the Ministerial statements. The meyibers of this majority, with few exceptions, whilst loudly expressing Liberalism, have cynically set their faces against the inception of reforms designed to substitute the immediate and continuous supremacy of-the people for that of Parliament, to curtail the pledging of the national credit, and to make the executive national and in conformity with the administrative machinery of successful democracy. These reforms must now be carried in tho teeth of these false Liberals. A new Wentworth with his reign of "Thorough" would be preferable to the pseudo-liberalism of such Liberals. Russell'' Lowell had our type of patriots before him when he made the pious editor say

" Oh how I've love my country sence, My eye teeth cut their sockets; And Uncle Sam I reverence, Panic'larly his pockets."

Let us welcome home our patriots at the same time, expressing the fervent hope that they may stay there as the best substitute for that place, " Where the wicked cease from troubling."—l am, etc., E. W. Burton*.

THE SINGLE TAX. TO THE EDITOR,

Sir, — have attended several meetings of the Anti-poverty .Society, and if I had the time would attend more ; because I believe its members are sincerely anxious to find some efficient means for relieving the poverty ami^listr,ess that exist in the world. In my opinion, all who work in this direction deserve encouragement, because they are actuated by right motives: and, if they do not propound the true solution themselves, they may be the means of eliciting it. The more I think over the theories of Mr. Henry George, the less I believe in them. It seems to me to be an absurdity to suppose that, by merely concentrating all our taxation on the land, we could cure all or even half the social evils we suffer from.

At the discussion on Mr. Ewington's lecture, Mr. Withy, jun., said that the single tajf would give us not only freedom from all other forms of taxation, but. also " free railways, .free tramways, free gas, free water, free electric light, free, everj/thinij." I am aware that Henry George sa.ys this, but if it were done, would it be an unmixed blessing? Would it not be a direct encouragement to idleness with all its attendant vices? Leaving out the " free everything," the other items mentioned must employ fully one-third of the labour of the world. It is difficult to foresse the social effect of withdrawing the necessity for so large an amount of labour. Hcnrv George and his disciples are undoubtedly right in their contention that the real cause of poverty and misery,, is the fact that all who want the use of a piece of land cannot get it. But is their method of remedying this evil the right one lam very clearly of opinion that it is not. Their statement is that "the reason land cannot be obtained is that it fa too dear, aud that this would be remedied by taking it away from the individual and making it the I property'of the State,

While the daily experience of my business proves to • me; that there ' are ■ tens,' aye, hundreds of thousands of acres of really good land to be bought in this colony at from Is to 30s per acre, it is an absurdity to tell me that the cause of our distress is ■ the price of the land. ;*

We are told that throwing all the taxation on the land will confer incalculable benefits 011 the farmers, but so far as I am aware the farmers do not favour the movement. Suppose the Single-taxers were to get their way, what would be the effect? A mechanic ana his wife, by dint of hard work, ana often, as I know, of great self-denial, have managed to acquire a little freehold, worth, say, £300 when they bought it, they thinking that, in their old age, they would be able to live rent free, and have something to leave to their children; but the single-taxer comes; along and says, " Yes, it is quite true that you nave worked and saved, and bought and paid for this property; but, we say, you did not give the land its value, and therefore we are going to take it away from you. Your land has increased in value, and is now worth £'20 per annum, and in future that rent you shall pay. We acknowledge your right to the old wooden building and the fence, which, when you die, will probably be worth £30 for firewood; that you can leave to your children, but that is all. We deny that they have any right to benefit by your thrift, prudence, and foresight. You must give all that to the State, even though your own children do starve." I fail to see the justice of such a transaction, or how the poor man can be benefited by it. Under such a system thousands of the best of our workers would be turned out of their homes in their old age. Another mechanic insures his life for, say, £500. : To pay the premiums involves a struggle. On what does the value of this provision for his wife and family rest? Is it not on land values ?- And if the value is to be taxed out of the land, and the mortgages of the Life Insurance Association rendered worthless, how is his policy to be paid? Would this help to decrease poverty? , While I thoroughly believe in a tax on the unimproved value of land, as opposed to a property tax, every day convinces me more and more that the single tax is one of the most mischievous propositions that was over broached.

" For now nearly thirty years the Poverty problem has - occupied a very large share of my attention, and I would gladly have given j the Anti-Poverty Society unqualified support had 1 believed they had arrived at the right j solution. All honor to them for their efforts. I In the following paragraph Messrs. Kelly and Piatt say, 1 think, a little more than | they intended to: —" Under the present system they have to go beyond the. outskirts of civilisation, or else to bow their necks under the yoke of the landlord or the mortgagee." Does not this indicate a clear wish' to take from those who have already faced the inconveniences and dangers of going " beyond the outskirts of civilisation " iii order that the newcomers may not have to face those dangers and inconveniences ; and.does it not also admit that the true remedy lies not in State, as opposed to private ownership of land, but in access to and from the land. It is my belief that the true solution of the poverty .problem lies in cheapening and equalising transit charges, and thus making land everywhere practically equally available for purposes of settlement and production. If I had not believed! this I would not have worked as I have done at the railway question. Seeing that the people of this colony could not possibly occupy its lands, nor the people of the world the lands of the world, there is surely 110 need to take from those that have, until we have used up the waste places.—l am, etc., Samuel Vaile. Auckland, September 22, 1891.

REVIEW 01? THE SESSION JUST CLOSED. TO THE EDITOR. —The session of the New Zealand Parliament just closed may be characterised as one of the most remarkable exhibitions of mental incompetence and moral obliquity ever witnessed in any country at any period of the world's history. When the so-called "great Liberal Party " aided by the inventor of the unborn millions and j abetted by the Auckland Liberal Association, assumed the management of the affairs of State, it was confidently predicted that universal peace and prosperity would at once cover the land as the waters cover the sea. Emigration was immediately to cease, and immigration of philanthropists and millionaires, all eager to join _ in the great work of regenerating " the babies that are to come," were to invade the colony in a continuously increasing stream. he complicated native land laws were to be made plain, simple, and just, by the colossal intellect and varied personal experiences of the new Native Minister. Mining in all its branches was to receive an unparalleled impetus from the practical knowledge of the subject to be brought to bear by plain Dick - Seddon." Departmental expenses were to be enormously reduced. ; Borrowing under any guiso was to be avoided as the most fruitful source of all evil. Land laws were to be introduced which would cause agriculturists of the most desirable charater to flock to the colony from the four corners of the earth, anxious to enrol themselves as citizens under the banner of the great, wise, and learned men who propose to lead the world captive with their socalled great liberal measures. The obnoxious j property tax was to be abolished. Big estates to be burst up, and a portion of the j revenue raised by taxing the British 'bondholders. All this was to be done, and much more of a similar nature. The curtain has now, however, dropped on the second scene in the serio-comic tragedy, and an outraged people find the result of all this vapour to be an alarming increase of the exodus of men who have means and brains to aid in developing the resources of this magnificent country. Instead of prosperity and progress, general discontent and stagnation are rampant. The great Maori land law doctor devoted the whole of his phenomenal talents to framing a Native Land Bill, and after three months' undivided attention to the contract, produced a jumble which was kicked about in a most disrespectful manner for a few days, and finally snuffed out of existence, its author not: even having the courage to protest against its strangulation ; in fact, his consistent silence was unbroken until a friend proposed a committee should be appointed who would in forty-eight hours construct a Bill to meet the case. The name of the head of the Native Department was not included in the list of the proposed committee, which had the effect of rousing the dormant British Lion," and the following remarkable words were hurled with crushing weight from his place on the Ministerial benches: —" If this is the way I am to be treated the sooner I roll up my swag and clear out the better." As a sample of polished and forcible rhetoric this original grouping of words shows what the Native Minister can accomplish when he bends his mighty intellect to the task. However, after all this, native affairs are as they were.

Mining lias never in the history of the country been in such a deplorable state of collapse as at present. " Plain Dick's" Minimi Bill is, like the slaughtered Native Land Bill, a farrago of confusion with a considerable dash of malevolence, and the result of its passage is that the speculator and investor are withdrawing as speedily as possible from an enterprise hedged about with so many mischievous and . impractical conditions, and the consequence'is a rapid departure of many of the best miners. Departmental expenses have been enormously increased, and a determined, attempt was made to extract from the public chest an additional annual sum of £10,000 or £12,000 for distribution amongst a subservient lot of Government followers. Already " the great Liberal party" have caused to be paid to their friends between £9000 and £10,000 more than the law contemplated, by reason of the two sessions, the tirst of which cost the country £150 per head of the legislators, and the second cost £100 per head, besides numerous other incidentals, in the shape of passages, Bellamy's, etc. " Plain Dick Seddon" has gathered together the remnants of all the loans, and also £•200,000 of the sinking-fund (which ought to be devoted to reduction of the existing debt), and is at once to spend the total on a number of undertakings, many of which must be unproductive until large additional sums are expended, thus paving the way for a fresh loan ; in fact, in some measure borrowing has already commenced, by the absorption of the £200,000 sinking fund. • The land law promised has proved such a conspicuous example of the unfitness of the framer to deal with the subject, that fortunately it has been relegated to the obscurity from whence it would have been well if it had never emerged, as many desirable intending colonists have completely relinquished the idea of coming to the country by reason of the absurd and destructive character of the proposed measure. • A land and income tax has been placed on the Statute-book as a substitute for the pro- | perty tax, but no person outside the Legislature or the Auckland Liberal Association : can see anything in the new taxing operation but an aggravated form of the property tax. To sum up : Between £20,000 and £30,000 have been distributed amongst the lawmakers during the year 1801, and the result is a material decrease in population, an enormous withdrawal of capital, stagnation of all local industries, native matters in the worst confusion, borrowing inevitable, gross and corrupt extravagance, a certain deficit; at the end of the financial year, and the colony a laughing-stock to the rest of the world. And all this is brought about, not by the will of the people, but by the unblushing rant of unprincipled and in most j cases impecunious demagogues. am, etc., » A), li. MqDonalu.

I LAND TAX. TO THE EDITOR. Sir, With your kind permission (although L' somewhat behindhand; owing to my being '?$ • ' $ away), I will now reply to Mr. Arthur ' Withy, as his letter lias ' considerably : I strengthened my - first • assertion, which he 1 controverts, " that a land tax is not only air. absurd and clumsy expedient to remedy land ; monopoly, but will have a disastrous effect ' upon the colony." Nevertheless I trust the paragraph which Mr. W. quotes against me, "a little knowledge, etc.," will always apply to myself as to every other individual. . , - My mis-statement re 2d per acre, instead , v«; of 2d in the £, in 110 way appears to weaken * . ray argument. Neither docs the fact that mortgagees are to be taxed in proportion to the amount of their mortgages, although this - [sf? is the only sensible and just section of the . ' whole tax. But taxing mortgagees is not a land E tax, ; but a money, tax, but while the mortgagee is making money with money, the landowner is endeavouring to produce wealth from the land. a Mr. Withy states : " What we do advocate is a tax upon tho capital value of the land, *\ exclusive of improvements." " Obviously," : continues the' writer, 41 this must be to the • small landowner's advantage." Although I utterly fail to see how this can »' ■ - • possibly benefit mortgaged squatters, I clearly see that it would be an advantage to a capital- : ist seeking considerable tracts of unimproved land. For," I say, in controversy to all the, Anti-Poverty societies in existence, that unimproved land, so long as it; remain? unim- , proved, 'is utterly valueless to anyone, and therefore cannot possibly be valued,apart from - '1 the improvements the owner lias been able to v; -• put upon it, and therefore the value of the laud depends entirely upon the improve- . v foments upon and around it. ' ' ; When the Government begin to talk about '' the " unimproved value " of land they mis'ht .. with equal sense and justice, when intending to tax wool, propose not to tax clothes, but the unimproved value of the wool in those clothes, when clearly the 0110 and only reason • « why the wool is valuable at any time is because it is cloth or will be made into clothes. , Therefore the value of land depends entirely upon the ability of the possessors to put improvements upon it. Now, cannot any schoolboy see that if the heavily mortgaged landowners who are ; paying their hardearned money to the mortgagees, which money, even if the mortgagees are taxed is not returned to the land, in the - shape of improvements, but squandered elsewhere, arc called upon to put a value upon their unimproved land, unless they put a, considerable value upon it, which they can ill afford to do, as it is still valueless to them, .their wealthy and unembarrassed neighbours, who have ample funds to spend on improvements, will K buy those lands up, improve and make money out of them, in spite of all the taxes the Government may heap upon them. In any •_ , case, the weakest will go to the wall first. At the present time nineteen out of every twenty landowners want to put more improvements 011 their properties if they had the means to do so.—l am, &c., '? C. P. W. Longdill. \''Yi September 20, IS9I, • ' '