DEPRESSION AND LAND VALUES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19727, 29 August 1927, Page 12

DEPRESSION AND LAND VALUES.

Sir, —On November 29 last the Herald made the following statement in its leading columns: " Since the Government first went into the land-buying business for ihe purposes of soldier settlement, thereby contributing the greatest single factor in the process of inflation of land values, the Herald has opposed this foolish policy. Nowhere has it been more emphasised than in these columns that as stabilisation and not further inflation of land values if. the first need of the times, there should be no more of this purchasing. ... If the conditions of holding land out of use are made so stringent that the owners of these areas must either work the land themselves, or dispose of it to someone who will do so. the. Minister of Lands will have the support of the Herald.'' Dealing with this same problem last Thursday before the Chamber of Commerce, Dr. Belshaw's final analysis was " that at least half the farmers are worse off than in 1914, and that the chief burden on them results from inflated land values in the past, and from excessive annual charges in respect of mortgages with the fall in prices." Here we have the same definite conclusion arrived at from two different angles, and is the same solution which was announced by Henry George nearly 50 years ago, when he said: " The surest sign of a_ coming; depression is the inflated value of land.' Sir Harold Beauchamp, in New Zealand, also hammered away year after year at the same topic. So that we have the Herald. Dr. Belshaw, Henry George and Sir Harold Beauchamp, all in the one boat as regards the cause of economic depressions. But what about the remedy T As soon as a weapon is forged with which to do battle against the economic canker of land speculation, New Zealand should look forward to a long and uninterrupted era of prosperity. Indeed, it will be a reproach to our community intelligence if an efficient and permanent remedy is notfound, now that the cause of the trouble has been laid bare by the scientific principles of political economy. There is definite work here for the Lands Settlement League. J. E. Greex. Onehunga, August 22, 1927.