The Waipawa Mail FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1883. A LAND TAX.

Waipawa Mail, Volume 5, Issue 607, 7 December 1883, Page 2

The Waipawa Mail FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1883. A LAND TAX.

The two great questions of the immediate future are separation between the North and South Islands, and a land tax. The former would be a great misfortune; first, and more directly, to the North Island, but secondly, and just as surely, to the South Island also. But a land tax, even if it were not more in the direction of immediate taxation than the land tax of the Grey Government, would, by replacing that most transparent of political shuffles known as the property tax, confer a benefit upon the country. And yet, if it came to a question of voting on those two questions to-morrow, and if those at present called representatives of the people were the only persons allowed to decide the issue, it is probable that a majority of North Island members would be found preferring the slow suicide of separation to a vote in favor of a tax on land. The reason is not far to seek. It is not so much the fact that nearly all the representatives of northern constituencies are large landowners, for that ought to he a reason in favor of their voting for a tax on their possessions, but because of an imperfect acquaintance with political economy. To say that a man who owns land should by that fact be favorably disposed towards the imposition of a land tax sounds like a paradox, but it is a truth, nevertheless. From the time of Sismondi and Kicardo, down to our time and to Herbert Spencer, political economists have borne united testimony in favor of a tax on land as politic and beneficial. And as wealthy landowners may be presumed to have leisure enough to read authorities on taxation, because of the fact that their position in life relieves them from the constant toils and cares of a merchant’s or trader’s daily routine of existence, it should follow that landowners ought to take a premier position in the van of political teaching. If that were the case in New Zealand, as unfortunately it is not, the present and most persevering opponents of a land tax would be found ranged with those writers and thinkers whose efforts on behalf of a rational enunciation of political well-being include as a basis for their reasonings a land tax. The people of New Zealand who are not landowners, and who are treated unjustly under tho present system of indirect taxation, are largely interested in striving for a more complete representation of their opinions in Parliament. If those who at present enjoy a practical monopoly of Government will not act in accordance with the sound principles of political economy, the people, in whom the power of Government resides, will bo compelled to return as their representatives men who will act differently. The opponents of progress are those who defend the property tax, Customs duties, and other similar impolitic methods of raising the whole of the revenue of the country. It is sometimes attempted' to be shown that none but ignorant or anarchical writers favor a tax on land as a means of raising revenue, but tho reverse is the

case. We have not space to name a tithe of the writers who, while almost ultra - Conservative, have argued in favor of the treatment of land as the source of revenue because it is the source of all wealth. It has become the fashion of late, since the advent of a powerful book by Henry George, to stigmatise all arguments in favor of a land tax, and all reasons for regarding the soil as the common heritage of the race, as communistic. This tendency amounts to a confession that the great writers of England are unknown to those who maintain that land ought to be treated as houses, or cattle, or manufactured articles. "We suppose the most rabid opponents of land reform would hardly claim Thomas Carlyle as a revolutionist. If he erred in anything it was in a hatred of the more popular forms of political agitation, but his strong common sense led him to conclusions on the land question far from palatable to those who oppose reform. In his great work entitled “ Past and Prosent,” in which, by the

way, he manifests strong Conservatism throughout, he gives utterance to the following :—“ It is well said, ‘ Land is the right basis of an aristocracy.’ Whoever possesses the land, he, more emphatically than any other is the governor, vice-king of the people on the land. The land is mother of us all; nourishes, shelters, gladdens, lovingly enriches us all; in how many ways, from our first wakening to our last sleep on her blessed mother-bosom, does she, as with blessed mother-arms enfold us all. . . . Men talk of ‘ selling’ land. Land, it is true, like epic poems and even higher things, in such a trading world, has to be presented in the market for what it will bring, and as we say be ‘ sold’; but the notion of ‘ selling’ for certain bits of metal, the Iliad of Homer, how much more the land of the WorldCreator, is a ridiculous impossibility. We buy what is saleable of it; nothing more was ever buyable. Who can or could sell it to us ? Properly speaking, the land belongs to these two : to the Almighty God; and to all His children of men that have ever worked well on it, or that ever shall work well on it. No generation of man can or could, with never such solemnity and effort, sell land on any other principle; it is not the property of any generation, we say, but that of all the past generations that have worked on it, and of all the future generations that shall work on it.” If that had been said by an avowed reformer, like Henry George, for instance, it would have been counted sufficient answer by opponents of reform to have stigmatised the sentiments expressed as anarchical. That is not possible with the writer quoted, and it would be interesting to know how the passage cited accords with the feelings of those who appear to look upon land as a convenient accident only suited to be dealt with as if the bulk of mankind had no interest in it. We have not space to pursue the matter farther in this issue, but may return to it at an early period. Enough has been said, and more than enough has been quoted, to show that the intellect of the world is strongly in favor of a method of dealing with land repugnant to the notions of those who, at present, are entrusted by the people with the future of this country.