The New Taxation.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7176, 11 January 1892, Page 4

The New Taxation.

The following appeared in the Lyttelton ' Times thia morning :—» ) TO THE BDITOB. *| Sib,— l have lately been spending my _ holidays in the North Island, and in one < short week I have travelled from Welling- 1 ton to New Plymouth and back again to ( Hawera and \Vanganui; from there to 1 Napier and back, and from there to Wei- : i lington and tho Lower Hutt. I should like \ ( to send you a short account of my trip, • ( only it would make my letter too long* ; but ; I think I may say that I found the papers ! in the North Island were not half as good 1 :as the morning papers of Christchurch. I j wsb surprised at the large circulation that j the Canterbury Times has in the North j Island. I saw numerous copies of it at Hawera, Wanganui and Wellington, and the first thing that I heard when the train arrived at Napier on New Year's Day j was the newsboys shouting out " Canterj bury Times." But I had no time to read the papers in the North Island, and when I got home again I found about a dozen copies of the Lyttelton Times waiting to be read. On looking them over I found that Mr Ensor had again been dangling the Conservative bogies before the farm labourer in the shape of increased scarcity of work cause by the Land tax, and before the mortgaged farmer in the shape of the increased interest he will have to pay. To my mind, both these things are mere phantoms that have been Bet up for the purpose of frightening the farm labourers and small farmers into voting for the Conservatives. It seems to me that the total amount which will be raised by the Land tax will be far less than the amount which has been raised by the Property tax, and, therefore, I fail to see how the Land tax will reduce the wages fund. I think that our farm labourers may rest assured that whether our great landholders have to pay Land tax, or whether they have to pay Property tax, they will employ just as much labour as they want and no more, and if the graduated Land tax causes some of our large estates to be divided then it will cause work to be more plentiful. At the present time there are large sums of money in New Zealand waiting for a safe investment at 6 per cent ; and I believe that the graduated Land tax will cause more capital to be sent into the money market for investment, as it is well-known that many of our most prosperous settlers have for many years been investing their savings in more and more land. In future I think that it will pay our great landowners better to lend their savings out on mortgage than it will to invest them in the purchase of more land. I should not have troubled you with this letter only I wish to tell Mr Ensor that my principal reason for thinking that the great landowners ought to pay the lion's Bhare of direct taxation is the fact th at the land h as been so greatly increased in value by the expenditure of public money and not the fact that the small farmers and working men are paying the greatest part of the Custom House duties; though even that is, I think, a good reason why the absentees should be called upon to pay more taxation. Mr Ensor's idea of a prosperous farmer seems to be a man who can get his land mortgaged at a low rate of interest, but my idea of a prosperous farmer is a man who haß no mortgage on his land. To my mind it is a sad sight to see a beautiful young country like this burdened with £40,000,000 of mortgages on its land, and an inquiry into the cause of them would, I think, reveal some interesting facts. I have been told that there are £12,000,000 of mortgages on Canterbury alone, and that if the mortgaged and unmortgaged farms of Canterbury could be shown on a map in different colours, then the unmortgaged farms would appear like small islands in the midst of an ocean of mortgages. I have no doubt that Mr Ensor would call it enterprise for a man to borrow money for the purpose of 1 buying out his neighbours, but it is a sort 1 of enterprise that has been so fatal to many small farmers that I havo sometimes > thought that it would be a good thing for Government to step in and prevent a man ■ from mortgaging his land. Many a well- \ to-do small farmer has in an hour of weakness mortgaged his first small farm for the " purpose of buying a second, and then < mortgaged the second for the purpose of buying a third, and then, when bad ' seasons came, he has been unable to pay - the interest, and then the whole lot, with - all improvements, has fallen into the hands - of the mortgagee, who then becomes the 1 absentee landlord. Perhaps Mr Ensor - would like to invite the Irish absentee 1 landlords who are now being bought out of ' Ireland to Bend their capital to this 1 country, and so become the absentee land- ■ lords of New Zealand ; but, I for one, do 1 not want to see it. The political power • that the Conservatives of New Zealand have so long enjoyed was very profitable to them in the past, as it enabled them, in ■ many cases, to take the oream of the land 1 for sheep runs, and to leave the sour skim • milk to the bond fide settler, and I expect ' that the Conservatives will make frantic efforts to regain their lost political power ; and I think that the Conservative outcry against the Land tax might be summed up as follows :— The new taxation is vexation, And bursting up as bad ; And Ballance, he perplexes me, And Land tax drives me mad. Apologising ior the length of this letter,— I am, &c, JOHN WOODWARD. Springston, Jan. 8.