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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 8986, 17 September 1892, Page 4

The other day, we pointed out that the Land Nationalisation Ministry and party had succeeded in getting through the House of Representatives a Land Bill which provided that the State should get nothing for the land now, and which was also careful to provide that the State should be debarred from obtaining any part of an increase of value that might accrue in the future. In fact, if anyone were to sit down to concoct a Bill to prevent the State obtaining any advantage for all time from the land which it now owns, lie could not produce a more effective measure than the one which is now law. A correspondent in another column says the intention is, to get at the unearned increment by the land tax. But that cannot be done. Sir George Grey's idea is that the land tax should be universal, and that there should be no exemption. But at present there is no land tax where the prairie value of the land does not exceed £500, and where the improvements do not exceed £3000. The holdings being parted with now are all under ' that figure, and therefore exempt from land tax. And even supposing the extreme case of a man taking up 500 acres, and the land becoming in the course of twenty years worth £50 an acre, in all probability he would not have to pay the land tax, because he was not the owner of the freehold. Justice might be done if a special land tax were levied on those eternal leaseholders, but that cannot be." The whole country will be filled with anomalies and causes of complaint. We shall have men who under the competitive system' have paid £4 or £5 an acre to the State for their land. These men, with very moderate holdings, will be compelled to pay land tax. Close by, we shall have men paying only a few pence per annum for farms of equal extent and value, and exempt from land tax. As for the other objections made to the Bill by our correspondent we say nothing. Our object was to show that as the Bill stands at present, the State will be cut off from all unearned increment from the great bulk of the land it will hereafter part with.