MR. NAPIER IN REPLY TO MR. T. E. SKELTON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9230, 19 June 1893, Page 3

MR. NAPIER IN REPLY TO MR. T. E. SKELTON.

TO THE EDITOR. - Sir,—The letter of Mr. . T. E. Skelton, in your issue of 14th instant, is entitled to a reply, and I gladly give it. Mr. Skelton blames me for not having expounded at my meeting at Paparoa the policy of the Dunedin Liberal Association as adopted by that body in 1891, I never undertook to do so. I addressed tho settlers on tho policy and administration of the Ballance Government and not on that of the Dunedin Liberal Association or any other association, and I challenge Mr. Skelton to cite any question or principle which has been adopted by the Government which I concealed or suppressed. The propositions submitted by the Dunedin Liberal Association and other similar associations are not, and are not pretended to be, the working programme of the responsible leaders of the Liberal party in tho colony. Such propositions aro rather, I apprehend, enunciated for the purpose of educating public opinion upon those_ varied subjects which the gradual evolution of modern society brings forward for treatment. With regard to the third clause in the platform of the Dunedin Liberal Association to which Mr. Skelton specifically refers, viz., "State ownership of laud, mines, and coastal marine," I may say that in one sense I do not at all agree with the proposition. I have shown in my lecture, " A Historic and Legal Justification of a Laud Tax," that according to English law the paramount ownership of the soil by the English sovereign (now representing the people) has never been surrendered. Land is held by those whom we call freeholders as tenants in fee simple of the sovereign. But the right of the sovereign to reouire a tax or payment from the landholders for the use of the land is unquestionable. There is therefore 110 such thing as absolute ownership of land. If the Dunedin Liberals mean by State ownership of laud merely the land law of England as it has existed with slight modifications since the Norman Conquest, then I agree with them. If, however, they mean (what I feel satisfied they do not mean,) the dispossessing of the present owners of land, I am utterly opposed to them upon this subject. I have never advocated " State ownership " of land, using the words in their colloquial sense. What I have advocated, and do advocate, is that the State should, by the operation of a fair tax on the unimproved value of land, be enabled to appropriate for State purposes whatever increment of value is given to land in the future by the labours or money of the community as a whole, and not by the capital, skill, or industry of the individual landholders. As far as State ownership of mines is concerned, I have never expressed any opinion 011 the subject, but it may be well to inform Mr. Skelton that the Crown, by the present law of New Zealand, expressly reserves its ownership of auriferous and argentiferous minerals. Upon the third point in the clause of the Dunedin platform above referred to, viz., "State ownership of the coastal marine service," I have never thought the matter was within the region of practical politics. I do not see, however, any objection on principle to the State facilitating settlement by establishing steam communication with Crown lauds in places to which the sea affords a cheap and speedy means of access, and where the forming of roads or railways _ with our present financial resources will be impossible tor perhaps a generation. There are numbers of such places, aud the extensive seaboard of New Zealand seems to have been intended by Nature to point out to our rulers the easiest method of opening up the country to settlement. Mr. Skelton asks why I did not tell the Paparoa people that I believed " that all private enterprise should be stopped: that the capitalist and his capital should be driven from the oountry, etc." The reason I did not tell them so is, that I do not believe that any of those things should be done, and I do not think any persons in New Zealand advocated such things. I cau well believe, however, that the political principles held by Liberals have been so misrepresented to country settlers by unscrupulous opponents that Mr. Skelton and others may conscientiously believe such calumnies. With regard to the number of members in the Liberal Associations of Paparoa and Mareretu, I may say that I prefer to take the reports oil this subject furnished by the responsible oflicera ot the respective Associations rather than the suppositions of Mr. Skelton, who, of course, does not attend their meetings. At Matakohe a Liberal Association was founded on the night of my meeting there, and over 45 members joined in the resolution establishing the organisation. In conclusion, I would urge Mr. Skelton not to take his opinions of the principles of the Liberal party in New Zealand from the frenzied articles of hostile newspapers or the platforms of sections, but to study the speeches of Ministers, and then to form his own independent opinion as to the policy propounded by the Government. — am, etc., W. J. Napier. Victoria Arcade, June 16,1593.