LAND TAXES.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 535, 16 June 1909, Page 7

LAND TAXES.

A CAVE IN RANKS OF THE LIBERALS. • FORTY DISSENTIENTS. ENDANGERING GOVERNMENT POLICY. (BY TELEOBArH—HtESS ASSOCIATION—COrYRIOHT.) (Rec. June 15, 11.45 p.m.) ' London, June 15. A meeting of twenty Liberal members of tho Houso of Commons declared almost unanimously against tho Government's proposed tax of }d. in tho £ on the capital value of undeveloped land. The meeting favoured the proposal that tho increment of land should bo valued for purposes of duty. It was unanimously against the proposed tax of id. in tho £ on tho capital valuo of un'gotten minerals. It is stated that twenty other Liberal members of tho Houso of Commons are in sympathy with the attitude of tho meeting. Commenting on this development in the Government ranks, the "Daily News" (Liberal) declares: "This Cavo among the Liberals is a worse omen for the Budget than all tho muttorings of discontent from the City and the Houso of Lords. But tho members concerned are a small minority; is the majority necessarily needing their votes? The general sense of tho Liberal party and the country is overwhelmingly favourable to Mr. LloydGeorge's land policy. This tax is ■an integral part of a great policy, on whioh there must be no compromise. The Liboral dissentients must bear tho responsibility before their constituents of endangering tho greatest achievement of this Parliament."

; [Tho term. "Cave" is usually applied to a combination. of a number of M.P.s to defeat a measure introduced by the' party to which they belong. The appellation took is origin from the Scriptural parallel drawn by Mr. Bright (March 13, 1866) when, he compared Lbrd Grosvenor and the Liberal opponents of Lord Russell's Eeform Bill to the men who gathered themselves to David in the Cave of Adullam.] ALLEGED IMPROPER USE OF THE BUDGET. London, Juno 14. Mr. Walter Long, president, arid' Gaptain Jessel, chairman, of tho Land Association, have protested against including in tlio Budget socialistic land legislation, which should properly, form the matter of separate Bills.

.THE TWO GEORGES. Criticising in tho House of Commons the British Government's taxes of 20 per cent, of unearned increment and Jd. in tho £ on undeveloped. land and ungotten minerals, Mr. Balfour said: "Mr. Henry George held that the holding of all land was robbery, and that. is a fairly coherent theory. But what, lies at the bottom of Mr. Henry George's great namesake's theory?" (Opposition laughter and cheers.) , Mr. Balfour did not think "the doctrine of unearned increment would hold water at all. Such real , property as. I possess," he said with a pensive air, "has, I regret to say, shown the unfortunate tendency not to an unearned increment, . but to, unearned decrement." Everybody: smiled. Mr. Balfour then asked what tho Chancellor proposed to do in such cases"; '■ • "Tho charge I.mako against the Government in all seriousness is that they are treating deliberately ono form of property with gross inequality compared with their treatment of another torm of property. I don't see how you can rightly mix up taxation on capital value and taxation on increment.' The two systems don't work together. Where the income is small and the property is large you tax the property; where the income is large and tho property small you tax the income. (Opposition cheers.) ■ . . > '■'