VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

Taranaki Daily News, 30 January 1934, Page 9

VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

VIEWS ON CURRENT TOPICS VACUUM PACKING OF BUTTER. NECESSITY FOR RESEARCH. (To the Editor.) Sir,—A paragraph in your issue of January 17 commenting on the quality of butter packed and shipped to Britain under the new vacuum method interested me greatly, as the remarks made show this butter to be of the finest quality. I have endeavoured to make a few private inquiries regarding this me the d of export and find that one factory packing butter in this way has made premiums of up to 13s per cwt., but none of our leaders in the dairy industry is interested and there is a danger of the patent rights of the invention passing into other hands and being lost to New Zealand. In to-day’s issue we have another article stressing the need for research work in connection with quality. . These two articles prompt me to ask this question: What has the Dairy Board, Massey College or the Government Department of Scientific and Industrial Research done with regard to this matter, which appears to me as a layman to have wonderful possibilities? Perhaps the Dairy Board members would enlighten dairy farmers on the subject I have also ,leamed that meat, ham, etc., have also been successfully packci this way.—l am, etc., ' T. T. MURRAY. Stratford, Jan. 26. FREE TRADE AND SINGLE TAX. (To the Editor.) Sir,—ln an airy manner, and presumably to his own satisfaction, M--Frank Bell disposes of the deep, farreaching economic question of free trade and single tax in a few: words, these few words, however, showing, that Bell has not given the matter due thought. His,statement that “single tax is essentially one-eyed since a farmer who produced, say, £5OO a year would pay most of it back, to the Treasury” is a specimen of his want of thought Mr. I?ell does not realise that that farmer is paying the single tax or economic rent in full at present, plus Customs duties, local rates, stamp duties and dole taxes. I maintain that if economic rent which at present is paid to some landowner, either in the shape of a so-called rent for leasehold or socalled interest on mortgage, could be diverted into the Government exchequer the, farmer could be saved the taxes he pays in Customs duties, etc. Using Mr. Bell’s own statement of a farmer producing £5OO a year, the following working of a farm, its taxation and income will be somewhere near an average in this district at least:—loo acres at £2 10s per acre rent, £250; rates, £25; Customs duties on family of five, £l2 per head, £6O; balance for living and -.costs of upkeep, etc., £215; total, £550; 50 cows at £lO per head, -£500; pigs, calves, etc., £5O; total, ,£550. Analysing the above figures from the point of view of one believing that the farmer would be benefited by the collection of economic rent for Government purposes, the position would be after the following analysis:—loo acres at a rental of £2 10s per acre or £250 per annum includes a payment for the use of improvements. This value would be deducted and bear no taxation. Assuming that the value of improvements and the value of the land are equal, rent at £2 10s per acre capitalised would mean the selling value of the land is £5O per acre, £25 being'the value of the improvements and £25 the value of the land. The latter £25 is economic rent capitalised, and the annual value at 5 per cent, would mean a payment of 25s per acre or £125 Following these figures single tax would mean to this, farmer:—loo acres tax of £1 5s per acre, £125; local rates £25 inclusive; payments for improvements, 5 per cent, on £25 per acre on 100 acres, £125; balance of living and costs of up-”* keep, etc., £300; total, £550; 50 cows at £lO per cow, £500; pigs, calves, etc., £5O; total, £550.

The difference in favour of the farmer would be '£Bs per annum. If these figures f"e approximately correct how can Mr. Bell say that most of the farmer’s returns would go back to the Treasury? He certainly lost sight of the fact that this payment is in existence now, and we propose to divert .it into the Government exchequer and free the fanners’ labour from other forms of taxation that are uneconomic, unjust in incidence and costly to collect. This letter would be too long if it showed how our trade would become free with its concomitant advantages and how the change would bear on professional men. Mr. Bell errs seriously when he says a professional • man earning £lOOO a year would escape taxation altogether. He would pay economic rent ’for the land his house occupied, and economic rent for the land his office occupied, but whatever payment he made both he and the farmer would be on an equality, inasmuch as their labour was free, and they paid only for services. rendered by the presence of the community. The probabilities are the' professional man would pay as much economic rent per foot as the farmer would pay per acre. The unimproved value of the land of New Zealand, which is economic rent capitalised, according to the Year Book in 1931 amounted to £331,601,773. Estimating the annual value of this sum at 5 per cent, it would return approximately £16,580,000. Will Mr. .Bell answer this question: How is the taking of this sum of money and reducing other forms of present taxation proportionately going to add to the costs of living of the farmer, business man, professionaT man or labourer, or in other words to the costs of the goods and services?—l am, etc . DAVID L. A. ASTBURY. Mangatoki, Jan. 29.