THE SINGLE TAX ON LAND VALUES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 9011, 17 October 1892, Page 3

THE SINGLE TAX ON LAND VALUES.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—Some ot your readers may think we attach too much importance to the revolutionary propagandise! of single taxers ; I do not think so. Unless they are closely watched and their bewitching illusions exposed. those who have lived sparingly, saved a little money, and invested it in land for greater security, will have their land values appropriated by the community at the instigation of single-tax who have wilily put their own savings out* on mortgage or into gas, bank, and other shares. I for one shall continue to expose the fallacious and revolutionary teaching of Messrs. Kelly and Plait, who are head and front ot the singletaxers in Auckland. While unsparingly condemning their teaching, I acquit . them of intentional wrong-doing, believing them to be under delusions—the delusions that the wolf is at man's door instead of in man's heart, that the single tax would kill land speculation, reduce the " price" of land, shorten the hours of labour, increase the " value" of land, raise the salaries of workpeople, abolish involuntary poverty, stimulate the building trade, improve business of every kind, rapidly increase our population, give work to all the unemployed, give us more goods for our money, do away with disgraceful dwellings, stop land gambling and all its evils, make stinting and saving unnecessary, make destitute asylums unnecessary, ensure a more just distribution of wealth, and provide a competency for the aged and infirm. If I believed that the abolition of private land-owning would remedy all economic evils, I would not own land ; that all singletax newspaper writers do not believe it is proved by some of them inconsistently owning land themselves. They have long tried to effect a reform with precepts, let them now try what practice, will do. Messrs. Kelly and Piatt alluded to Henry George's reply to the Pope's encyclical letter on land and labour. I have carefully read the letter and Mr. George's reply, and consider that Mr. George utterly and absolutely failed to disprove or answer His Holiness' arguments. But, even if Mr. George had upset the Pope's contention, it would only have been like carrying an outer trench of the citadel, for he would still be met (as Messrs. Kelly and Piatt are) with the irresistible rock of the decalogue, " Neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour's house, his field," etc., etc. (Deuteronomy, v. 21). If it was and is right for Jews to own land in Palestine, it cannot be wrong for Maoris and colonists to own land in New Zealand. If, as singletaxers contend, it is wrong for a few persons to own land, it cannot be ri»ht for many persons to own it. If New Zealand belongs equally to all the human race, it cannot be ri»ht to impose disabilities on Chinese and other aliens. Messrs. Kelly and Piatt quote Henry George's fallacious statement, that men cannot live if some persons own land, a preposterous statement, seeing that millions and millions of men live in peace and plenty without owning or using a bit of land, while other persons do own and use it. Land nationalisation here, as clamoured for by Messrs. Kelly and Piatt, would (1) be unjust, because it would involve the taking away from men what they have honestly paid for, or suffered in the battle-field for, to make civilised life here possible ; (2) it would ruin the colony, because it would involve absolute free trade here, except in land, and then our manufactures and agricultural produce would be taxed by all other colonies and countries, while foreigners pour into our free ports their t own exports; (3) it would destroy personal incentives to industry and thrift; (4) would deter land settlement by the heavy tax which tillers of the soil would have to pay: (5) would merely change the private landlord for the state landlord; (8) would be unjust to land-users to make them pay all the taxes, while mortgagees, shareholders, and other rich persons escape; (7) would involve the compulsory putting up of the land to the highest bidder, leaving the poor to bid iigainst the rich; (8) would rob working men and others of their savings; (9) it would be unfair to English capitalists who lent us £60,000,000 of money: and last, it would kill Messrs. Kelly and Piatt's hobby horse. Almost any man in this country who wants land can get it, and I challenga Messrs. Kelly ana ■•Piatt to deny that the majority of those who own land, alias "social pests," are benefiting the country. In wool, meat, and grain landowners supply over six millions sterling of our exports, and there are hundreds of workingmen, like those on Mr. John Grigg's estate at Long Beach, saving money and rearing happy families under freehold tenure. In the little Isle of Jersey this year the potato crop realised £376,535, but that garden of industry would be converted into a comparative waste if the owners were robbed of their land values.—l am, etc., F. G. Ewington.