LAND NATIONALISATION

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1280, 5 July 1886, Page 3

LAND NATIONALISATION

TO THE EDITOR

Sib, —I know you would not willingly misrepresent my views on Land Nationalisation, but unwittingly I fear you have done ao. The report of the lecture and your eub-leader that appeared a day or two ago I let pass, though they were not quite correct, but your leader of Saturday makes it necessnry I should give some sign or else be classed among " the spoliation party." As a preacher of the Gospel it is more than probable that I have an old-fashioned repard for the eighth commandment. But where must I be, Mr Editor, if I am iscluded among thoso referred to in the following sentence ? w At the risk of incurring all these epithets we confess that we dissent, and dissent very strongly, from the views held by the spoliation party." Now, your reporter will remember that I distinctly stated that

" I parted company with Henry George" when he came to where he described the process by which he would take the land from the people. George would quietly take the land off the owners by taxing it up to its yearly rental value. That is to nay, he would destroy ita selling value without giving compensation. This view have never held, and certainly never propounded To confiscate land from the Government (or . from private which men have bought parties) is robbery, and it is written ••Thou shalt not steal." I tried in my lecture to establish the principle that land was not an ordinary commodity, to be bought and sold—that every man has < a right to live on the land where he was born, &c, and that this would become increasingly difficult a 3 the lnad passed away into private hands, I advocated no confiscation. I stated the views of J. S. Mill, Herbert Speroer (wh«e plan I said was worse than fionm(i'«\ Wallace and others The

only suggestion I made of my own for the solution of the difficulty was one that I saw recently made by one of our representatives in Wellington—though I had held it before seeing it in the papers. It was (and to do you justice, Mr Editor, this may have led to the misapprehension I complain of) that I thought it wou'd probably come to pass that the taxes would all gradually be placed on the land by a tax increasing say every five years If there were time and spice it could be sh-wn that even this place would entail no hardsnip upon landowners, for indirectly all, or nearly all of this amount would come back to them. They now pay taxes—they would then pay a little more, but get their goods duty free. That, I admit, is a controversial question—not to be settled in a hurry—but of this lam quite convinced, and am prepared to defend ; tb at owners of lnnd have no right to any increased value that is put on that land by the presence and industry of oiJiers. A man is entitled to what he works for. Every penny of improvements he puts on his land belongs to himself and ought not to be taxed, but " value given to land by the community belongs to the community " and I maintain that euch value if appropriated by the State would pay all our t?xes and the interest on our national debt. —Yours, &c,

D. McNicoix Ashburton, July 5, 1886