THE LAND QUESTION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 5598, 26 May 1905, Page 2

THE LAND QUESTION.

(To the Editor “N.Z. Times.") Sir, —If this were merely a correspondence with Mr McDonald, I might agree with him as to the undesirability of continuing it under such discouraging conditions of distance and time, but where a them© as old as the world, and of deeper import than any other in the field of economics, is under consideration, such potty obstacles must not deltain us from looking at the great question from all sides. My worthy antagonist takes that of the settler; I am more deeply interested in the position of the whole people. Though I fully agree with Mr McDonald that the settlor or his descendants are better off in one respect where they can confiscate the unearned increment for all time to come, 1 am absolutely convinced that the welfare of the people as a whole absolutely forbids the granting of such a privilege, and as tho welfare of each citizen is more or lees bound up in that - of all, w© shall find that finally even the beneficiary of monopoly loses more than he gains through the consequences of the wrong by which ho profits. There was a time when the countries of Middle Europe were infested by thousands of men watching the highways from their castles, and pouncing upon the traveller peacefully following the roads or rivers at tho foot of their strongholds, to debaraas him of such portions of his wealth as, in their opinion, could well bo spared by him, or, anyhow, would benefit them, the robber-knights, far more than it hurt their victim. If anybody had talked to these unreasonable men of laws that would put an end to their pleasant pastime, they would have protested as least as strongly as our friend against such an encroachment on their old rights, would have foretold the time when no man would find it worth his wlmo to build expensive castles on inaccessible craigs, and when the business of robber-knights would be spoilt for ever. And yet oven the descendants of these very men are better off in a world with peaceful highways and other blessings of civilisation. Therefore, even if wo cannot succeed in gaining over the beneficiaries of the old wrong, I should think that the great question for the people is to find out whether the well-being of the nation as a whole requires a change in the existing system, of land ownership or not. If it does, it matters little whether pioneers would like to obtain special advantages for all times to come, or would have to be satisfied with suen advantages as can be safely given, them without . injuring their fellow-citizens.

By proposing a law which would give this deserving; class of men the full right to their holdings at the low price which they paid for tho whole time of their occupation, including that of their direct descendants, I had gone considerably ahead of what most or my land law reformer friends are willing to concede, but even this does not satisfy my opponent. Nothing short of the whole increase of value for all time to come will do ; for him, no matter whether'he continues on the land or not, or whether his descendants have retired into some city, perhaps of a foreign land, there to live on tho tribute paid, by the hard-working occupier of the land which their progenitor one© worked, but which they now merely use as a tribute-extorting medium. No matter whether the increased value of such land is duo to the pioneer's exertions or to the railroad built near it by other people, to the inventions of men the pioneer never heard of, such as refrigerators, centrifugal separators, manures, etc., in fact to the whole of'tho intellectual conquests of generations. I have gone here far beyond what singletaxers would concede, not because I think justice demands it, but because I am of opinion that we must always find the line of least resistance if w© want to accomplish something in this world. I propose to reward the pioneer for his exertions by letting him farm under fairer conditions than the men who com© after him; but here wo have a pioneer who is not satisfied with being a successful farmer, but also wants to be a successful, speculator as well, a man who expects to benefit by the labour of others to as large an extent as possible. It is here all lovers of their, fellow-men bav© to join ; issue with him; it is horo where the ways part. It is not a question of freehold or leasehold, it is on© of the future unearned increment —unearned, as has been said wittily, because those who earn it do not get it, while those who get it have not earned it. Here is the issue on which the great battle will be waged between tho people and the monopolist, no matter in which manner he secured his monopoly.

But there is still another side to this pioneering question which is ‘ generally overlooked. We usually omit to investigate where the pioneers' hardships mostly originate, and how easily most of them could be obviated. It is the distance from the centres of population and the difficulties of communication which are the, great enemies of the pioneer. Now, my dear Air McDonald, will you, who are one of our old identities, one of those men who saw our New Zealand in her beginnings, as a whit© man's country, will you tell me whether most of these hardships were not avoidable if every new settler could hare obtained enough land for his labour right near to the ports and, anyhow, immediately contiguous to a fellow-settler who himself was not further separated from others than the land necessities of each required. Do you agree with me or not that what forced the pioneer to go further and. further away from civilisation was not the real necessity of the case, but the intervening lands of 'the speculators ? m Tho whole even of our present farming and grazing population could bo accommodated with enough suitable land- in the neighbourhood of existing roads and other means of communication if all the land, without any exception,wore accessible to them, and the only reason why it is not accesible is tho very law you stand up for, you, the once hard-working pioneer, who. instead of defending labour, instead of standing in the ranks of reformers, who, want to give to the worker the full earnings of his toil, are arraigned on the side of monopoly, in the ranks of those who live by the sweat of others on the strength of miserable laws which permit the dead to exploit tho living, which make it a mortal sin to com© into this world at a later date than others whom these laws enabled to monop >lise forever the means of subsistence, of future generations. -

"Well 'dir daes do ein Enkel bist!" (Woe to thee that thou art a grandchild!) says Goethe, and the pioneer McDonald, the man who once himself worked in the sweat of hie brow, attacks those who want to terminate this woe, who want

to deliver Working humanity from the curse of slaving for the men of past gen.* orations and . their lucky descendants, think of the unnecessary roads made for distant settlers who had to go so far because better and nearer land was not accessible; dogs in the manger bolding it out of use; or, anyhow, of the best use to extort a higher tribute. Look at the picture presented by each city, which, in a narrower field, merely repeats that/of the* land at large! Roads, side-walks, water-pipes, gas-pipes, electric lighting* wires, telephone and telegraphic wires* tram-lines, police protection, etc., extend’ ing over a much larger spat*, than neocoifsary, because a section of the inter* veiling land it? hold for higher prices by speculators. 1 have calculated that Auckland, with suburbs, for instance, could have been'built on half the present area, and still give each family over onethird of an acre, after reserving as much as 1500 acres for paries, roads, and public buildings. Take all this into consideration, and then join the men you have been attacking, whose sole crime consists in trying to find means and way* to do away with such intolerable abuses, which have contributed more than any* thing els© to make our world a hell in* stead of tho paradise it might be. Join them, if. old ago has not deprived you of the power to see things in a light differing from that of a life-time passed under tho reign ,of old-time errors and deceptions. —1 am, etc., MICHAEL FLTJRSCHEIM. Coronado, California, April 14th. [Receipt of Mr lUurschoim's letter ha* been delayed through a mistake of tho American postal authorities. A pathetic incident of the correspondence is that, since tho letter to which the foregoing in a reply, was written, Mr McDonald has "joined the great majority," and has, let us hope, corn© into an inheritance where he will not be disturbed, either by revaluation or land nationalisation pro** jects.—Editor "N,Z, Times."! .