TAXATION OF LAND VALUES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11397, 14 April 1899, Page 6

TAXATION OF LAND VALUES.

TO THE EDITOH.

gi E .—Observing some correspondence in your valuable paper upon the above-named subject, with your permission,' I should _be glad to have a. few words to say respecting it. I am at a loss to know how anyone who has considered the subject at all, from a moral standpoint, or in an economic sense, can' for a moment argue against the justice of the taxation of land values.

In a. word,,it is claimed for the single tax that it is the only tax that can he applied that will bear equally upon all, whilst all other forms of taxation bear more heavily upon one class than upon another, and generally most heavily, upon that class that is least able'to bear it—i.e., the working class, or more properly speaking the wage earning community. All speculation in land values is immoral, because it is a dishonest'transaction.

Private ownership in land is wrong in principle, because it is in opposition to Divine law, arid diametrically opposed to the best interest of the community. Land is common property, and the value given to it by the community by their presence should be taken by the State in the form of rent for the benefit of the community. If this were done by the Government of New Zealand, I am inclined to think that all other forms of taxation could be dispensed with, and the prosperity of all would be increased. All would have an equal chance at his start in life, and although it be granted that some would outstrip otherß in the race by reason of superior ability, yet none could complain that ho had been subjected to a heavier burden than another.

Land monopoly is the source from which all other forms of monopoly, spring: break up the parent monopoly, and the others must suffer dissolution. The. only class who are strenuously opposed to the taxation of land are the landlord class, and as progressives everyone knows how much they are worth. Here in New Zealand you already have an instalment of Henry George's single tax, and so far I think' Die re3ult has been satisfactory. Why not still further apply it? What is true of the part must bo true of the whole in this case. That which is morally wrong cannot be legally right, and private ownership in land is morally wrong, and although it may be legalised, that does not make it right. Thero is much more that I could say, but I do not wish to intrude too much upon your space at first, and trusting that you will kindly insert this first instalment,—l am, etc., Single Tax. April 12.

—It is estimated that fully two-thirds of the whole amount of public money held by the London banks does not bear interest.