LAND AND MONETARY REFORM

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21961, 19 November 1934, Page 12

LAND AND MONETARY REFORM

Sir, —In his reply to "E.N.D." Mr. A. A. Wright suggests "judicious doses of consumer credit." Assuming that to be so, the next question is where and how is this to be achieved? Merely issuing more money would have the effect of coinmunising private wealth, since the State does not create wealth, and when all boiled down it would mean that the taxpayers and producers would have to carry the real burden. But why not simply do the honest thing and take the community's own values and monetise them for distribution? Land rentals are the natural reflection of the growth or decline of population and progress, and form an automatic source of revenue, and their reception by the community would permit of the abolition of taxation, and thus at once create consumer credit by increasing the purchasing power of money to the extent of the abolition of taxation. The foremost writers on "social credit" are now recognising that land restoration is the natural and sound basis for monetary reform. The Biblical dictum that the profit of the earth is for al> is sound economics, and the way to monetise this natural profit, which is the natural fertility, in farm or site value, or in products, such as minerals and timber, of the earth is to collect the rentals and royalties on bare land and on natural products, and use them for community purposes. The old Hebrews divided the land, not by area really, but by Yalue. the richer land being divided into smaller lots than the poorer areas in point of fertility. As we do not all now want to hold land, the equitable method is to divide the ground rent, by taking it for public services. T. E. McMillan. Matamata.