A TIRADE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 942, 21 March 1890, Page 14

A TIRADE.

TO T3JK EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND MAIL. Spa,—Anyone who reflects for one moment will see that society is divided into three great orders, viz., workingmen, beggarmen, and thieves. A little more reflection will enable each one who reads this quotation to determine for themselves to which of these orders they belong. Without further preface I beg to say that your contributor ‘Asmodens ’ reads the signs of the times erroneously, for instead of ‘the maddening process ’ (he calls i') ‘ leading to destruction,’ there is no doubt in the minds of those who' think de.eper than he does, that the Bocial questions that are now agitating the world will lead to tli,e people working out'" forthemselves a great and lasting redemption ; in fa,ct,' ; will lead to a reign of mercy and justice such as bas never been known before. His remarks on the Single Tax shows conclusively that he does not understand it, and in .essaying to criticise it he, like other of its opponent? ? has simply made himself ridiculous, for how is it possible to haye but one tax (and that a tax on land yalues) and yet * spare’ the death duties, and stamp tax ? The people owning no lapd (that is, all those monopolizing no natural opportunity) would pay no taxes at all. Rents would fall, for the simple reason that the single tax (irrespective of improve • merits, mind) would force all unused land held for speculative purposes into the market; at the same time the removal of the duties from building materials, tools, &c., find the cessation of rates and taxes’, now eyiefl on buildings and improvements, wopld so encourage building that the competition for tenants would bo another reason why rents would fall, and this would also effectually prevent the single tax being added to the rent by the landlord ; but besides all this, * Asmodeus ’ will see the great facility that the single tax would give for people becoming their own landlords. As to Customs duties, .let me ask ‘ Asmodeus ’ if the ‘ poor people who have to work ’ do not pay nine-tenths of these duties ? The small number of the ‘ unemployed rich ’ causes but a email part of these duties to be

| paid by them. The one million and a half I raised by these duties come chiefly out of the earnings of the wage.earning class, and instead of the poor Buffering, as ‘ Asmodeus ’ says they ’would, I can hardly help saying that he knows the reverse would be the oase, and that the poor would greatly benefit by the change; Again, what an impetus would be given to business of all kinds were this million and a half left with the people to spend among the tradespeople and shops, instead of being taken from them for revenue purposes. j I suppose ‘ Asmodeus ’ calls the property tax a ‘ tax on riches,’ but notwithstanding the £SOO exemp'ion, this property tax even is to a very large extent paid by the masses of the people, indirectly to be sure, like the customs duties, but still paid by the poor, who little think they pay it at all. It is passed on in the price of goods, and the consume*- in the end pays it. ‘ Asmodeus ’ says truly ‘there is a big revolution in this single tax business,’ but it is a revolution that is being effected without harming any one, aud is destined to bring blessings to all alike (customhouse officers included), for the simple reason that it is founded on truth and justice, and is destined to destroy the mon strous wrongs that now afflict society in the shape of soul.destroying poverty and want on the one hand, and soul destroying wealth on the other.

James Gbove. Hutt, March 15, 1590. [Like many others of his order oar correspondent regards abuse as the mainstay of argument, and having made a fetish of an idea he tears it to tatters in his contentions. We publish his letter, which is simply sound and fury made up of mere assertion, and lacking one sound argument. He disposes of the single tax question with all its tremendous issues iu the so many words published above—to his own satisfaction.—Ed. N.E.M.J