LAND TAX SCHEME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21136, 19 March 1932, Page 15

LAND TAX SCHEME.

MR. LANG'S LATEST IDEA. CONCERN OF GRAZIERS. [FROM OL'R OWN CORRESPONDENT.~| SYDNEY, March 10. The New South Wales Government is the latest to come forward with a scheme to tax big estates out of existence. All estates with a value exceeding £BOOO would be liable under this scheme, and tile scale will be comparatively light for the first year, but will be increased in succeeding years. Ostensibly the idea is to promote closer settlement, but the hig landholders have their suspicions, just as they suspect everything Mr. Lang does. They say that a more inopportune time for the imposition of additional taxation could not be imagined. It is pointed out that the great majority of the people on the land have made no profits at all during the last two years, and that many of them have been decidedly hard pressed to carry on. Notwithstanding their supreme efforts they ar e being threatened with defeat through costs that are out of all proportion to the prices they obtain for their products. There is one thing more than another that they are looking for nowadays, and that is a lowering of costs, whereas, tho latest plan to tax estates worth more than £BOOO will increase those costs. Already there is a Federal land tax designed, it was said, to promote closer settlement. If that were the object it failed dismally, and the tax is now regarded purely from a revenueproducing point of view. ''Even assuming that the Lang Government was genuine in its desire to break up big estates," said the president of the Graziers' Association of New South Wales, "there is the fact that under present conditions it would be practically impossible to finance any considerable number of settlers on to the land. Experienced men with the necessary capital are not available, and neither is assistance from financial institutions. Then again, if a great deal of land were forced on to the market at the present time, a further slump in land values would occur. If it did so it would bo disastrous to the present holders of land, whether they held large estates or only small farms. "Obviously, it is impossible to reduce tho value of the land held in large holdings, without reducing the value of all land, pastoral and agricultural. Doubtless the Lang Government will raise the parrot cry of 'putting the land to its best use. We contend that the people who know the land are much more capable of_ judging its best use than Labour politicians and Government officials. Moreover, no man can afford to-day to hold land without striving in every good way to put it to the best possible use."