TAXING THE LAND.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2789, 29 May 1890, Page 2

TAXING THE LAND.

TO TUB KIHTOR. Srit, —I did not again intend troubling you about the vexed question of taxing the land, but I see a correspondent signing himself " J-Pen," kindly writes, informing me that Henry George and his disciples do not intend to steal the land. This is so far good (if the value is not taken out in taxes), for it simply reduces the idea to an absurdity, rooted in cupidity, but not supported by argument, reason, or precedent, becoming infectious, or floating in the air, like maleria, affecting those liable to sucli influence?. If the land is not to be stolen, how can it be paid for, or where is the money to coine from'! Or, if money could be found, which is impossible, for it is not in the world, who would pay the interest on sucli an overwhelming amount; and if all this money was paid to land-owners, what would be left to run the trade and commerce of the country. Everything would be at a dead lock, and. if butchers and bakers aud tailors should become farmers, could they pay interest on the value of land and the necessary existing taxes in addition. So much for the idea of buying the land. In the samo paper your correspondent proposes as an argument for taxing the land, that the fanners should be relieved of paying duty on mauures, and cm a pump. lam not aware they pay duty on manures, and will not go into all his cheese-paring arguments to prove they do so ; but I cannot see why they should be exempt from duty on a pump, any more than the brewer or the baker, or any of the community. But he says the land must be taxed, or, as he mildly puts it, the unimproved land. Here ho has " found a patch," but will it pan out? Is it the fanners' unimproved land he wishes to tax if so it is a strange way to help struggling men to improve their farm*. The ti-tree and fern are already taxed enough, as too many find. If your correspondent trys an acre of scrubbing, the practice might improve his theory, and until the land is improved it is not worth two shillings an acre, and nothing, if taxed, so that he may have the fee simple. He may have thß large land-holders in view— the "landsharks.'' It will be found such men have improved quite as much in proportion as the smaller holders, and by applying capital and labour and improved appliances they have greatly increased our exports, and brought money into the country, and cau even send their produce to the North cheaper than we grow it. And how I many hundreds of men have got a start from working on larpe estates ? Or is it speculators he would tax ? I wish he could catch them at it. Our public and our private debt have stopped that game. I know of land sold lately in the Waikato and in the South Island, partly improved and close to railway stations, at a third of what it cost ten years since. A rare chance for speculators, but, unfortunately, they "won't bite." The very name of a tax upon land destroyn its value, us a fax destroys the farmers" means of production to the extent of the tax, and redounds upon non-producers and saps prosperity at the riot. It is just about as wise—and more honest—to talk of taxing the unimproved land in the hands of the Government as to tax men who have bought land, and are struggling to improve it, while the Government is doing all it can to turn the land to some account by selling or leasing, "according to George." But it is very questionable whether the ready-money transaction is not the best for a Government requiring to borrow money for roads, railways aud bridges, and even to pay interest, aud make the ends meet. The grout) matter is to throw no obstructions in the way of settlement, as sottling the land is our only chance. —I am, &c., T. M.