The New Zealand Times. MONDAY, JULY 22, 1912. THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8179, 22 July 1912, Page 6

The New Zealand Times. MONDAY, JULY 22, 1912. THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE

The Hanley by-election in England was fought entirely on the land question, Mr Outhwaite. an advanced iefornier, winning by a substantial majority.

I’he importance that the land question is gradually assuming in Great Britain Jias been shown to us very clearly in cable messages published during the last week or two. ibis was particularly the case in connection with the by-election for Hanley. In this contest Liberal, Conservative, and Labor candidates participated, and it seems that land and the many problems it presents were the principal issues placed before the electors, her some strange reason the cabled intelligence prior to the polling was entirely adverse to the chances ot the Liboial candidate. Wo were told that his •candidature was not taken that ho would “ probably withdraw, and that the campaign on his behalf was being carried on solely by a coterie of Liberal members, among them Mr Wedgewood, Mr Hemraorde, and Mr TJre, whose efforts had provoked enthusiasm for the taxation ot land values, on which the election wvas being fought. All this was rather difficult to believe by those who know how this question is marching to tno front of political issues, and now strongly enthusiasm has been fanned in every electorate in which Mr Lie has been one of the working influences. How misleading the opinions given in advance were regarding Hanley wa saw the other day when details of the voting were transmitted, for the liberal candidate, whose withdrawal had been foreshadowed, won with a very handsome majority. Air Outhwaito, it may be here recalled, is one of tno most pronounced advocates of xhe taxation of land values in all England, and his victory, taken with the result or elections in other districts, is encouraging evidence of the growing determination among the electors to put an end to the fearful anomalies in Britain’s system of land ownership.

During the progress of the fight at Hanley we were told that a Labor member of the House of Commons had declared that “the unearned increment of capital should be taxed as well as the unearned increment of land. What the gentleman meant can only bo a matter of conjecture, for the single phrase we have before us is obviously without meaning. In what form is the “unearned increment of capital” to be found P Wo know where to put a finger upon unearned incremeat in relation to land ' and have daily evidence before us of the burden this imposes upon mankind, but to speak of the same .thing about Capital in a general sense is to introduce intQ the argument something akin to a will-o'-the-wisp. There are monopoly earnings of Capital that are a proper subject for the attention of the State, but these are obviously to be dealt with by cutting the ground from under the monopoly than by allowing it to remain in possession. By that means the monopoly is destroyed, not left to levy toll upon the community in consideration of having paid a tax for permission to continue exploitation. However, whether the theory of taxing “unearned increment of Capital” is one possible of application or not there« can do no possible doubt that increment given to land by social causes can very justly be appropriated for purposes of government. Indeed, it is seldom one hears any denial of this, argument to the contrary resting almost wholly upon the doctrine that this increment cannot be determined and, in any case, does not amount to much. This contention is entirely specious and wo doubt very much whether _ it is really believed by any rational citizen. It is not our intention, however, to discuss this phase of the question just now, beyond drawing attention to the fact that whenever the project is raised of removing from industry and enterprise some share of the burden of taxation' arid placing this upon, land values, those who this step are answered by denunciation of the single tax. Mr Bonar Law, leader of the Conservative Party in Great Britain, appears to have fallen back upon this device during the campaign at Hanley, for we read of him asserting that the single tax was one of those forms of lunacy which frequently afflict mankind. Now, the single tax; everybody knows, involves a philosophy extending far beyond the mere levying of a share of taxation upon land values instead of upon the labor and enterprise of society. To call every suggestion for making this change advocacy of the single tax is manifestly dishonest, and the people who use this argument know it. It is not an advocacy of the single tax to hold that the cost of municipal government should be'in great part defrayed by rates, nor to insist that m this country, for instance, a greater part of the cost of general government should he > met by a similar impost. Here in New Zealand we tax scores of things in daily use by the people, who are thus made so much the poorer, and at the .game time wo allow them to be almost mercilessly taxed by ground landlords. Unless we put the boot on another foot we can expect to see our friends in Parliament continuing to struggle with social and economic problems in the same way that Mrs Partington met the advancing Atlantic.

The lesson to be learned from the election at Hanley is a repetition of the one recently given in Is orth-west Norfolk, where the Liberal party carried the war right into the enemy 8 country and land reform became the burning question, silencing all others., At a time when the Liberal line was more open to attack. than ever before during the last six years the only result was the biggest Liberal poll on record. Writing in tho Daily on the campaign in Norfolk Mr E. Or. Hemmorde, K.C.* says the splendid Liberal poll was duo to tho great popularity of the land proposals, and that be is firmly convinced a bold policy of taxing rural as well as 'urban land will at the next election give the Liberals a great victory. Starting, he adds, from tho undoubted fact that large numbers of agricultural laborers had been driven to leave the agricultural districts during the last few years and seek service upon the railways, in the factories, and in the mines, it was easy to show that the railway strike and the miners’ strike were largely influenced by the low standard of wages introduofid by these new comers, "Vi e therefore proceeded to examine the reasons why the wage of the agricultural laborer is so low, and found two main reasons—firstly, that he has very little chance of getting a decent cottage from which he is safe from eviction if he makes a stand for better

wages; secondly, that he has little or no chance of getting land of his own. The Small Holdings Act has secured 137,000 acres, but little of this has come the way of the agricultural laborer.” Devices for purchase and leasing and so forth find very little real support in England from those who are fighting xo open the land to the people. They see that the only weapon to use is the effective one of taxation. Already in New Zealand public opinion is rapidly moving in the same direction, and before long will mako tlie question the dominant one among our political issues.