GOVERNMENT AND PEOPLE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1222, 2 September 1911, Page 14

GOVERNMENT AND PEOPLE.

Sir,—Your correspondent, Mr. Edward T. Evans, complains that this is the only countrv in the Empire where taxes are levied oil bread and potatoes. My reply is that tlie people havo no objection to taxes oil commodities. They have a deep-rooted belief that tlio taxing of almost everything t hoy eat, use and wear is necessary in order to provide employment for them. Othcrwiso they would surely band themselves into ono great league, determined to return to Parliament a man for every seat throughout the Dominion pledged to abolish all taxes on industry, ami raise the revenue required for national and local government by the simple and eminently just method of taxing'laml values, 'l'lie people, therefore, aro to blame for present cconoroic con-

ditious. They will not study the liter- ! aturo issued by the New Zealand Land Values League; hence they remain in darkness, with the kind of government they deserve. If the great army of wage-oarneTs will not use their brains, if they will not organise and provide the funds to Fend to Parliament men who will light with religious zeal for a just order of things, and if they will not recognise that the proper use of their political power would be moro advantageous to them lha.n strikes, then they deserve to suffer the manifold evils which spring from land monopoly and land speculation. But any effort's they may make will, I am Mire, be nullified unless they seek God's aid in the fight for economic justice. They must recognise the power behind the universe, the only power which can regenerate men's hearts and minds, the only power which ca.n destroy greed and pave the way for real social reform which will lead to tho highest state of civilisation it is possible for us to attain. Jfr. Evans wants the items of expenditure in each Government Department. Ho should apply to the Government Printer for a copy of tho Estimates as soon as they have been circulated in tho House. Jlr. Evans complains about tho amount of expenditure incurred by certain 1 Departments. It is all very well to complain, but you must have State Departments, and they cannot lie main- , tained in sucli a high state of efficiency as will satisfy the public if you adopt a cheese-paring polioy in respect to them. As, however, Jlr. Evans- really possesses very little knowledge of the wide operations and multifarious activities of tho great Departments of State, tho public need not take his criticism seriously.—l am, etc., F.