A LAND POLICY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23015, 18 April 1938, Page 12

A LAND POLICY

. Sir,—lf private ownership is to continue it must have a sound and honest basis, and the only sound and honest basis is human lahour. Men and women who have rendered service are entitled to thte value that service has created, and it is the work done that ought to determine the prices of the goods that are bought and sold on tlw markets. How can we apply these principles to lajid values? If one piece of cloth sells for c 10 times as much as another piece of cloth, it will in the main be found that 10 times as much labour has been spent on the one as has been spent on the other, but one piece of land in Queen Street will sell for a thousand times ,as much as & far larger price in the country, though the land in the country has been substantially improved by its owner,'while the land in Queen Street- has never been touched by the band of man. This difference in the origin of values is fundamental, and a great wrong was done when those who framed our public policy ignored it. A piece of land, apart from its improvements, acquires its value, not from the labour spent upon its production, but from the income that can bo derived from its use, and this again depends enormously oil the business done, and the markets pro* vided. by the community around itLet our population increase, let our means of production be improved, let our civilisation take a great leap forward. and a piece of cloth will sell for no more than it now sells for: it will probably sell for less, but a piece of land, in any favourable situation, will sell for enormously more. It follows from this that making land values private property robs a portion of th<» population of their just, share of the fruits of progress, and the unjust policy is as stupid as it is wrong, Tt is. in fact, a main cause of booms and slumps, with all their ruinous consequences. With rising values speculation spreads through the community like a plague. In place of husbandry we have a sorry scramble for unearned harvests; values are raised far above what production justifies; the producer burdened with impossible costs; nervousness concerning values breeds a slump and thousands who thought to benefit by a wrong system find themselves ruined by it. Obligation* incurred by the State must be respited by the State, but no community '8 justified in perpetuating wronsqoin' If it were made known that for tofuture no individual would be allowet to gain from rising land values, speculation would cease in an instant. would be purchased solely for only by use would it yield profit. ' n ' I submit, would be a great reform. Manurewa. J. Joh>*sto. •