The Opposition and Progressive Taxation. TO THE EDITOR.

Otago Witness, Issue 2762, 20 February 1907, Page 17

The Opposition and Progressive Taxation. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir,—^The attitude of the leaders of th« Opposition to the " bursting-up " proposals of tho Government's Land Bill ie surprising, for they eeem to approve of the main principle of the measure, namely, to make it impossible for anyone to continue to hold land exceeding a certain fixed value, whilst they differ from Mr M'Nab merely as to the method of attaining this end. The Go■\ernment proposal. is to fix a period within which owners of estates exceeding the legal maximum are to reduce their holdings, whilst the Opposition leaders advocate the application of the principle of progressive taxation. That there should be so little outcry against the main part of the schema is equally surprising, and one cannot help suspecting that the fact is attributable to confidence on the part of the large owners of being able to dods?e the law ; and if Mr M'Nab should succeed in devising provisions that cannot be e\aded he will have performed a memorable feat in the drafting c£' his bill. In the speech delivered by him in Aitoc* land on the eve of his departure for London,, the Prime Minister expressed himself &f open to convention in favour of the inethon advocated by Mr Masscy. a fact which may well lead the leader of the Opposition' ti suspeot that he may have made a mistake. T shall be very much surprised if the Socialistic leaders of tho Labour party dc not declare thoir preference for the methoc of progressive taxation, and then Mi Mas=ev will probably have more than a suspicion that he must have got on the wrong track. Personally. I consider the method pro posed by Mr M'Nfeb more in consonance with justice than that of progressive taxa tion, which I cannot help regarding as vcrj dangerous when applied to such a purpose. In support of this view I quote a paesaga from an article which I contributed to Your columns about five years ago: — "So perverted have our notions of taxation becomo by the infusion of Socialistic ideas thah taxation has come- to be regarded as a kind of cla-=s war, and a means of removing or mitigating inequalities of fortune by producing a redistribution of property. In every age attempts to transfer property from one class to another by legislation and taxation have been the political stock-in-trade of the party politician. In taxation, ac in every thing el*e, the only safe guido is justice. 'We are =ure to co wrong,* Turgot «aid once, when pressed to confer som" advantage on the poor at the expense of the rich, ' the moment we forget that justire'alone can keep the balance true amonjr all rights and interests ' To use taxation as an instrument for effecting a transference of property from one class to another, as. for example, by applying the ferew op taxation for the puipofof ' bursting-up ' larare e->tate«. is gros^ iniustice: and that; men who nr>- honouiable in then- ordinary dealing* should i"g.ird eonfi-cation by means of taxation as justifiable for my purne»e, e\en the nio^t laudable, is :i remarkable instance of the t-endencv of democratic »-entiment to render men blind to ordinary moral di-tinction«. . . . The greatest of the dajitrers of our methods of taxation ;« the facility with which taxation can be employed by the Socialists in their attempts to bring about a redi-tribution of property by means of legislation. Of revolutionary Socialism we need have no fear ; but we have every reason to dicad the consequences of the u=e of the legislative power of taxation by fanatical Socialists and predatory majorities. Tho favourite device of this cla^s i« progressive taxation, and its ureat danger lies in the fact that to the unthinking it is apt to appear aft perfectly just and right. ... If the prineitjle of progressive taxation bo once applied at all, any limit to its application is purely arbitrary." In confirmation of this view I quote a passage from a recent article by one of tho most evmnathctic of the critics of Socialism — John Graham Brooks. "To tho Socialist, taxation is the chief means by which he may recover from the propertied classes some portion of the plunder which their economic! strength and social position ha\e enabled them to extract from th© workers. To him national and municipal expenditure i* tho spendincr for Simmon purposes of an overinerea^ine proportion of the national income which i'- spent collectively instead of individually. To the Socialist tho bc*t of governments i« that -which spends the most." Progressive taxation is the favourite explosive of the Socialist, and the les» Mr Ma-*ey has to do with it the better.— l am, etc . February 1. -T. MacGregob.

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