CAPTAIN RUSSELL'S LEADERSHIP.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11658, 15 February 1900, Page 2

CAPTAIN RUSSELL'S LEADERSHIP.

TO THE EDITOR. . .. Sir, —-Mr Mallard, in his reply to my last under tho above heading, shows me that our views are very much alike, only he falls, into various errors from not having studied the subject carefully. - . For example, he says, "All human laws receive their life from one divine law—the law o£ Nature and of reason." Had he said "All human laws ought to receive," etc.,-it would have been correct. < ■ '

]?or example, the law which grave one man the power to drive hundreds of his fellow cre^tures out of their homes in the North of Scot- - land was never founded on divine law, because the Divine law is absolute justice, while tht law of which I speak is a monstrous injustice: We single taxers claim that the single- tar, which is very near in Britain, trill, when.in full force, give absolute justice. " . Mr Mallard fears that in the near future the tax on land values will not be sufficient to ; meet the increased revenue required. This is another fallacy. Had Mr M. only thought, he might have seen that all the Revenue was ' raised from the land now. That 'is, we small , farmers pay the most of it. My grocer and my draper and my plouprhmaker and my druggist and my doctor and my lawyer all shift their tax on to'my shoulders when I deal with them. How could they pay their tax otherwise, unless they own land and get an income . from it again ? Again, it has been proved that.,'. in 1891 there were 262 individuals who owned 7,300,000 acres of land, and it was found that they paid a tax equal to 3d per acre, while it ■ was found that 80,000 people living'on 300,000 acres paid 12s Id per acre of taxation. The graduated tax lessens the difference, say, by one-half. We small farmers sti'V pay. say. 24----times as much tax per acre as the monopolist. The single tax kills monopoly. Taxing labour is confiscating what an individual has really . earned, and which really belongs to himself, but taxing land is only asking a man to pay foi' a privilege or for value received, which is justice. It is not just to ask me to way 24----times as much per acre for my land as the owner of a 70,000-acre estate. I have to do so now—it is done through the customs. It is not. fair either to compel the ma,n who lives 12' miles away from a railway station on a very poor piece of land to pay as much taxation as I do, who live close to a railway station on first-class land. The single tax would sweep away all this injustice, because we would be asked to pay according to value. The late John Ballariee went as far as he dare go at one step when he became Premier, and he showed wonderful courage in doing so. What I want now is for Mr Seddon to go another step, for the very reason that Mr Mallard does —viz., prosperity .to the colony. There is nobody who will deny that the policy of the Hon. J. M'Kenzie has added greatly .to the prosperity to the colony, and yet all. single taxers know that it is the wrong method. The Minister knows this, too, no doubt, only he thinks it could not be.carried. The secret of the matter lies here. that.labour applied to land make^i wealth, and if the colony had sufficient wealth, she would have no difficulty in payh'.s; her way. If the tnx was doubled, then the labour. I have mentioned would be applied to the land in- any way that the owners chose, either by fellnio: it "in small farms or by employing labour.

And here let me point out another fallacy of Mr Mallard's. He seems to think that applying or, increasing the tax on land makes it (tear, when the reverse is the case. Tax carriages and they become deal1, tax guns and they become both dear and less plentiful tax some articles sufficiently and you put them out of use : mit tax Innd, and it becomes cheaper and more plentiful. Put all taxation on land and ho mart will ever have to look for work: the employer will look hitn np. ' As for Captain Jlnssell, I don't look to .him to take this step, because he believes in a monopoly of land, and the people of New Zealand'don't believe in it: and until the Captain changes his views, he will never get the opportunity to do anything.—l am,'etc., Robert Dodds. Otamita, February 9.