TO THE EDITOR

Otago Witness, Issue 2009, 25 August 1892, Page 32

TO THE EDITOR

Sir,— Mr Jas. Douglas has penned a long defence of the present .Government. Any advocacy at the present time of the Government taxation policy Is premature, for all untried taxation is governed by contingent events. So far as a forecast can be made, the small fanners seem to be much the same as under the property tax. The larger estates will pay more, but this will undoubtedly be deducted from working expenses and improvements where it is practicable. At all events the working man will lose on the legislation. . When more revenue is wanted Mr Douglas and his fellow farmers will have to sup- § lenient any deficiencies that may hereafter arise, urely Mr Douglas is aware that the present Government are single tax politicians, who mean ultimately to saddle the owners of land with every national burden known, and some to be hereafter conceived, thereby elevating the farmers to the proud and historical occupation of hewers of wood and drawers of water.

Every reader of the Witness must be aware of the terrible array of figures quoted by Mr Douglas, as they have been proclaimed by the Minister for Lands from a thousand hills. The 7,348,713 acres owned by 34(5 individuals and 16 banks must be received with the proverbial grain ot salt, as it contains some of the poorest land in creation, and if Mr Douglas had to make his living from 1000 acres of it he would find himself reduced to greater extremities than ever Nebuchadnezzar encountered in his bovine rambles. The true state of matters is bad enough without exaggeration. The true and just policy is how to solve the problem without injuring the country, or how to improve the country without injuring any class, and I am convinced that the present Government, who are disciples of that pnnco of dreamers, Henry George, are not tho men to do it.

Did not the Minister for Lands publicly announce, before he cooled down after being made a Minister, that in 50 years no such thing would bo heard of as a freehold? Yet this astounding statement was made at a time whon the British Parliament had voted millions for Irishmen to buy their farms, and at a time when only 10 per cent, of the lands of Germany is in tenants' hands. Professor Schmallen, a noted authority, says: — "It is ownership alone which has been found to exercise upon the German peasant a powerful effect in making him intelligent and industrious, and in giving him a sense of independence and responsibility which is not otherwise to be secured. Other countries have been aiming in their own way at the same thing. The Minister for Lands at the same time said that it was better for people to be tenants of the Crown than tenants of private individuals, and in a few weeks after he fined Mr Haldane LI a day for not being able to pay on the very day. During the last 10 years the Tory landlords of Great Britain remitted considerable sums to their tenants a3 an abatement of rent in hard times. Was the New Zealand Government ever heard to remit a farthing to tenants? When human beings shall cease to crave for freehold the millenium is not far off, and there will be no need for Quixotic Ministers parading the country redressing imaginary wrongs. The Minister for Lands also said that people preferred perpetual lease to freehold tenure. And these are the three main ideas the Minister for Lands has brought forth after 25 years' political incubation. No man worthy of the name would prefer leasehold to freehold, but many an honest man is compelled to accept the alternative when there is no remedy. A working man said to me the other day that it was a life-long consolation to him to think that some day he might be the possessor of his section. The cry that largo holders has been the sole cause of our misfortunes is putting effect for cause and cause for effect. The true causes of our misfortunes have been the discovery of the gold fields so early, and over borrowing, which has raised the sale of land too high for wageearners to aspire to freehold. The price of land ought to rise only in proportion to the accumulated wealth of the country. If it rose slowly, as is natural, very few of the land speculators would have bought large estates with the view of doubling their value in a few years. Says Adam Smith :— " Cheap land and high wages are the only conditions of progress in a, new country." — I am, &c, Ceres.