UNEMPLOYMENT.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13917, 31 May 1909, Page 3

UNEMPLOYMENT.

TAXATION OK LAND VALUES

The Lord Advocate, Mr Alexander Ure, speaking at a meeting lieid in the Town Hall, Birmingham, in April last, in support of the taxation of land values, saul the causes of unemployment were numerous and varied, and the cures musL be numerous and varied also.

There was no complete and perfect cure, though in Birmingham thtv had had it dinned into their ears that Tariff Heforrn alone would give employment to all. .(Laughter and jeers.) When would these men learn <i was not- work we wanted, but wages; it was not toil, but money; it was notcontinuous and steady employment, it was useful and remunerative employment. (Cheers.) Had the men of Birmingham lost their reason, or were they blind that they were told to tax themselves in to prosperity, to make everything cheap by making it scarce, and everything plentiful by making it dear? The perfect cure ottered by these brazen-throat-ed tub-thumpers.at street corners would not afford additional employment. Those who made similar goods to the goods which the foreigner now sent to our market would have additional employment, and higher prices and useful employment would be found for battalions of Custom House officers. Germany had a coast line of 170 miles. \Ye had a coastline of thousands of miles, with numerous creeks and bays, the favoured haunt of the .smuggh'r. Did they suppose they would keep the foreigners out without an army of Custom House officers? lint if they turned to the losses involved in this "cure," the sailors, shipowners, ship builders, dock ffibourers, stevedores, weighers, measures, carters, and railwaymen who carried our imports, would Le thrown out of employment, and our last state would be worse than our first if we tried 'to exclude the foreigners' goods from our markets. You could not give additional employment by any tax laid upon any commodity except to the Custom House officer and the. smuggler. There was only one means of giving additional employment, and that was by opening up free access to the land of the country. Our present system was expressly designed to discourage men from making the best possible use of the land which Heaven had created for them. He proposed that a man's contributions to the needs of the community should be strictly proportioned to the advantage which he derived from the. community. It was'' a measure which answered sensitively to the progress of the community. The effect would be that a large num-

ber of people who at present ofteiel no contribution to the rates would l»e invited to join the ranks ot-the paversi A still larger number would be- asked to pay a greater contribution than was now collected from them, and a vet larger. number woidd be Invited to pay a good deal less than tliey did now.. (CheersJ He proposed the land; sjipulu .be rated according to its market value year b.v vear. That would cheapen building land, and would • relieve. the industry,'enterprise, and energy ot the Co in in unity from -the. burden they now bore. . He thought there.-was a means by which they would ascertain the value of the' people's land without troubling the House ot' Lords at all. Whether that- means would he taken lie could not. tell,' arid if lie knew lie would ..not tell. (Laughter.) . They were 011 the eve of a vile, ruthless; vitriolic measure. The vast mass of the people were moderate, temperate, law-abiding, full ol an abounding sense of justice and fair play. With 'courage and unfaltering resolution the Government would, bv oneshort Bill,-end for ever the, claims putforward bv the peers to oppose- the will of the people. In that same short Bill thev would vindicate once . for. all the rights of the freely-chosen -representatives of, the people., (Cheers.)