THE MANGERE FARMERS AND THE SINGLE TAX.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9480, 9 April 1894, Page 3

THE MANGERE FARMERS AND THE SINGLE TAX.

TO THE EDITOR. Neither Mr. Taylor nor Mr. Massey ; seems to be able to distinguish between "land value" and the wealth which is the product of labour, and until they can do so, it is hopeless to expect them to see the justice of the priuciple we contend for. Mr. Kirkbride said, in one of his letters, that it was only townspeople who said land was too dear. Most farmers who have freeholds, have paid a speculative price for their land ; and while they look on land as a speculative commodity, they are not likely to be converted to the single tax. We know that some landowners think that the present Government has done them an injury by reducing the price of Crown land, and giving such facilities for settlers to go on the laud as did not exist when they bought their land. They fear the selling value of their land may be reduced by settlers being able to get land now from Government on easier terms. Farming cannot pay when the price of 'produce is low, and land and labour are high. If land is dear, labour must be cheap. To get a fair return for labour and capital, land must never rise above its using or producing value. That is the only real value that; land should have, if settlement is to prosper. Those farmers who now look on the "selling value" ,of land as one of their principal assets, and who look on any change in our method of taxation that reduces the value of that asset as "robbery and confiscation," will begin to see things from a very different point of view when they have their sona and daughters to settle on farms of their own. If the vested interests of a farmer and those of his children who are seeking an opening for their labour are opposed to each other, the sooner such an unnatural condition of things is altered the better. Would any farmer having sons wishing to begin for themselves ask any better terms for them than that they should have the land they want at its using value, and have no other taxes to pay; or does he wish all future generations to be handicapped as he has been? - « Everyone who ha 3 travelled over New Zealand knows that the cream of the country, for productiveness, is held in large sheep runs employing little or no labour. The land that would not carry sheep without a large outlay of capital was the only land the "small settler" was able to obtain. Those who t»y to persuade the "small settler" into the belief that the single tax will ruin him know quite well that he is paying at present four times as much in indirect taxation as he would have to pay under the single tax. The most of the small settlers' land north of Auckland is so poor that it has no value apart from the labour expended on it. When the farmers are told that the townspeople wish to lay all the taxes on'the country settlers under the single tax, surely they must take the country people to be densely ignorant. We could find hundreds of farms in. the North, occupied by families of from five to ten, where the unimproved value of the farm is less than that of one foot of land in Queen-street yet these people are told that the country is to be taxed for the benefit of the town! v ; , It would be perfectly right to tax all forms of wealth the same as land, if it could be shown that all forms of wealth reaped the same advantage from increase of population, and public expenditure on railways, roads, and public works in general. The labour legislation Mr. Taylor proposes may ease the lot of those who are in steady employment, but can do nothing for the unemployed. , . ■■■:-.■' ■ j , We hear very little of destitution among, the Maoris, yet they are not very industrious, nor have ' they the provident virtues which some think are the true solution of-poverty. Yet their standard of living and comfort is better than that of the peasantry of the Western Highlands, or the south of Ireland.l

1111 , ' b i i -JLg ■■>■•"•■• Does anyone doubt that if the Maoris were deprived of their land, or rack-rented, they . would all be paupers in six months ? :*' We believe that all attempts to deal with the unemployed, or to solve the poverty pro. blem without freeing the land from private monopoly will be utterly useless, and past, legislation has shown it to be so. The cry of "To your tents, O Israel!" must now be "To the country! ye surplus inhabitants of the towns." The divorce of the land from the people must cease; or national disaster will ensue.—We are sir, for the Ground Kent Revenue League, Adam Kelly (in absence of the President). James Batty, Secretary.