LAND VALUES AND TAXATION.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXX, Issue 3785, 6 July 1899, Page 2

LAND VALUES AND TAXATION.

(By F. W. Revell.) Mr Gardner is incorrect in his assumption that I am so dense as to have completely misunderstood him as i regards his meaning as to rate per cent.," or prodcue having fallen in price, which requires the mortgagor to produce the additional amount of ; produce, or true wealth, in order to meet his interest. Money is the product of the earth; bnt the earth is not the product of money. Mr Gardner’s studies are from theory; mine are from practical experience. I was bom in New Zealand in j February," 1843. Al that period the population was very small, land was cheap, and up to the year 1860, the outbreak of the native war, there,were but few who weire paying rent. Land values being low, anti mortgages very small, labour got all that it produced; the people were happy,; anti contented, ever ready to render a service to anyone in need, and to co-oper-ate in their labour in time of harvest or in : any other needed work. Selfishness was practically unknown. But mark the change in 1860. The settlers were driven within the entrenched limits of the towns, a large population to He settled within a square mile of land. The result was land values rose; rent ten shillings per week, for a, small room; and within that mile, a great increase in margin - of value for mortgage, I have grown from childhood to manhood, from manhood to declining years, and steadily with my growth, with the increase of population and the expenditure of borrowed millions, land values have continued to grow; and with the growth of land values and the continued increase of a high revenue tariff rents have increased beyond the earning power of the landless toiler. Employment is precarious, and as the land vises in value the struggle for bread'becomes keener.

It is evident Mr Gardner has not studied the two issues of the Single Tax reform, namely, reduction of Customs duties and the increase of land tax, together with the number and nature of land owners. There are, according to statistics, 45,192 people in New Zealand owning land under .£IOO in unimproved values; 31,207 over .£IOO and under £SOO. The total unimproved value is £8,621,360. Now, 8180 people own land to the 'value of £41,011,283 unimproved value, or in other words, 8180 people own three-fourths of the lands of New Zealand: and it is only reasonable to suppose that many of the large landowners hold many of the mortgages on the remaining quarter now in the hands of-the smaller holders. Mr Gardner has come to the conclusion that interest should* be gauged by the rise and fall in the value of produce, or as he

properly states, true wealth;, but if be means by legislation, he has set himself a - difficult problem to solve, as all produce does not rise and fall in price at the same time, but by natural law. This is the goal the Single Taxers are striving to reach.-- For example, 4d in the pound tax on the unimproved value of the land, without exemjdions or graduated tax. would yield .£100,000,000 per annum revenue, "which Avmild enable the 'State to reduce the Customs duties to the same amount. Now, add the merchants' and retailers' profits on that million at 33i per cent, and you will find that the consumers acfually pay .£330,000 additional in the form of profits to enable the State (o collect their million. This amount represents about £1 Is 6d per head of the population. As this is the half of fhe revenue required by the State, it would cheapen and bring into actual use the lands that are now lying idle, or into full use the lauds Unit are partly used, increasing the manutacture of shirts, boots, etc., not by hundreds, but by thousands. ; : Mr,-Gardner argues that in the event of his lending a coat to, a friend, he has a ‘ just fight- to' have the coat returned in as good a condition as when lent. The coat‘is-'produced by labour,' and it not his own labour, having paid an equivalent;, to the producer,, - it is by his right against the world. But let.ns carry this illustration a little-farther. , Supposing the person to whom the coat was lent sold it to a third/ person, .would Mr Gardner 1)0 ; c6i:llnf to give up possession of ihat coat.to the last purchaser? I think not; he would demand the coat, and 1 lie last purchaser would, sustain ■ the loss. This argument gives ns fi good comparison of the land 'question. The person who borrowed the : tWt committed a breach ol trust by selling it -to another person. The function of a Government is to govern in the best interests of all classes of the people within their country. The land being created, and being onr on Invisible means of support, is it not a fact that tlie'children in our school who have had no voice in their destiny, have been deprived;.of their natural..heritage, by a Government that had no right in equity to sell the land or to deprive them of their bread? It is a breach of trust on the part of a Government and the land should lie returned or its equivalent in the form of- a - land fax'to the disinherited, ns you would, demand the return of your coat.