LAND AND LABOUR.

Otago Witness, Issue 3114, 19 November 1913, Page 6

LAND AND LABOUR.

ADDRESS BY MR ARTHUR WITHY. Mr Arthur Withy, organiser of the Now Zealand Land Values League, who is af present visiting Dunedin in the interests of the league, addressed a meeting in the Trades Hall on the 11th, on the subject of “ Land and Labour.”

Mr Withy said . that a better understanding of the land question, which was simply a great phase of the labour question, would prevent any such troubles as they were suffering from at the present time. “ Land ” in political economy included all natural resources and forces —included, in fact, the whole planet, and was the passive factor in the production of wealth; while “ labour,” which included all human powers of mind and body, was the active factor. So long as the land, on which alone man cotdd live and labour, was monopolised by the. few, and the many had to pay heavy toll to these few for the right of access to the land, the workers could never get their full earnings. Until the workers got the full product of their toil they could not expect them to bo satisfied. No honest man wanted more than the product of his toil; no man but a coward would be content with less. But instead of fighting on the industrial field against their employers, who were often as much exploited, if not more exploited than the men who worked for them, they should fight on the political field against mononolv, without which no man could exploit his fellows. Land monopoly was the root monopoly, and that was why he hacl chosen “Land and Labour ■” as his subject. They must go to the root. Uproot this root monopoly, and when that was done, although other things would remain to be done, the ground would bo cleared to such an extent that they could see clearly what remained to be dealt with and how best to deal with it. Fie advocated the untaxing of trade and industry, the untaxing of labour and labour products, and the taxation of land values instead as the best moans of uprooting the root monopoly.