BURDENS ON LAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9927, 17 September 1895, Page 4

BURDENS ON LAND.

Several causes have contributed to the fall in land values in these colonies of late years, one of the most conspicuous being the increased burdens placed upon land, and the determination of a powerful political party to take away all the ancient rights and privileges of freehold. But one cause why there is now an almost entire cessasion of that stream of men with capital coming out here to make homes for their families, we ourselves have contributed to. Land is now an unprofitable article to hold in England, owing to the vast importations of produce from abroad. Land in the colonies is not now conspicuously cheaper than in England. For a man with a considerable amount of "liquid capital" in the colonies it would be quite an open question whether he should buy land here and commence farming, or in England. We observe that farms have been sold lately in one of the best counties in England at £7 and £8 an acre, while the rents in a few cases are merely a few shillings an acre. In some parts of Essex, not far from London, land has absolutely been allowed to go out of cultivation. There is at present a considerable amount of discussion proceeding as to how this evil is to be remedied, for an evil it certainly is. The remedy by protection, and the exclusion of foreigu and colonial products by import duties, is agitated for only by a few superficial people who are scarcely to be taken into account, but there is now a consensus of opinion that something must be done in the way of reducing the special burdens upon land. There is no absolute objection set up to this, although to carry out the idea may be somewhat difficult. But if the idea is carried out to any appreciable extent, it may deprive the colonies of one of their ' great attractions, that here any man could possess himself of a piece of land which he could call his own, whereas in England that was formerly almost an impossibility. But the turn which affairs have taken in England should be a warning to us to stop in our crusade against land and landowners. To judge by what has been said of late years, many people think that there is really no end to what can be taken out of land by the State. It has been proposed to give a "free breakfast table," to abolish this duty and that duty, and when the question was asked how the deficiency was to be made up, the reply has always been, by increasing the land tax. Mr, Reeves calls landowners social pests, while Mr. J. Mackenzie always reminds his opponents that any more taxation must come out of the land. What is being done at home ought to be a guide to us, if we are blind to the signs of the times amongst ourselves.