LAND NATIONALIZATION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1285, 10 July 1886, Page 3

LAND NATIONALIZATION.

TO TUB EDITOR. Snt, —In reply to “ Radical” I simply asked if h® would kindly prove his statement, viz, “That the land did ultimately bear all the taxes ” Now, sir, for ons who assumes to be an authority upon ■uch an important subject, I think his answer is a tittle childish. Ho might as well bar* said that land is the source of all wealth; eggs are wealth, thereto.®, land is tha source of all eggs, which is equivalent to saying that all eggs are ultimately laid by tho land. Or he might have said the tame thing with respect to a watch, or any other article which is produced by th® aid of other factors as absolutely necessary to production as is tho land Let me ask “Radical” to come back for a moment to first causes, his own starting point, and ask him does the land lay eggs, does it make watches, or does it even produce taxes rs a commod ty of value ? This is the sense in which he uses that term ; and 1 think be will not 1 be radical enough to say yes thereto I If, then, the land does not produce ' these articles, which are only of value 1 because they are eggs and watches, &c., then, it is clear that land is not the | source of all wealth, and consequently should not bear all the taxes.

What, then, is the source of wealth? Why clearly—land, or material, and skilled labor. Now, both these requisites being absolutely ne essary to the production of wealth, they must therefor© have distinct, separate, and real values in themselves; end ns such, according to “ Radical's” own showing with the land, must as producing agents bear the taxation necessary for the uses of the community who a-e to profit thereby. And, moreover, to tax the one irrespective of the other, would be to make the one lich and the other poor. With reference to the question — *lf every ass bears his own burden, what bears the ass ?”—I submit that the ass has no parallel in man. The ass does not produce, but only eats to live and lives to eat, and baa no conception of wealth. Not so with man ; he uses both the ass and the earth in order that he may give value to the two —I am, &c., Lacxdar.