NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1535, 3 September 1912, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

A contemporary, which is probably in the confidence of. the extreme "leasehold" members of Parliament, announces that "the Opposition" intends to offer strong resistance to the Government's proposal "to give the holders of renewable leases the right to acquire the freehold at present-day values." The re-, cent division on Mr. Craigie's motion does not appear to have taught wisdom to the extreme advocates of State landlordism. Only a minority of the Opposition voted with Mn. CitAioiE, and if the factions have achieved solidarity on any. particular question they could have chosen sonic better way of showing it than by shirking the simple enough operation of choosing a leader. The newspaper referred to solemnly, adds that the Opposition will not oppose the proposal to offer the freehold to l.i.p. tenants. This is most considerate, indeed; since there is not one chance in a million of preventing such an obviously common-sense remedy for Sir John Mackenzie's strange old blunder. A\ r e would suggest that the Opposition, now that it is feeling (or saying that it is feeling) in fighting trim, might show its mettle by challenging the Gov-. ernmcnt on a direct motion. Such a motion would help the public to know, what nobody knows at present, just where the Opposition stands as a party on the main issues, if it stands as a party at all, which there is plenty of reason to doubt. Perhaps the extremists amongst the leaseholders are hoping to turn the freehold movement aside at tho eleventh hour by senseless' stonowalling.

As we mentioned yesterday in passing, the eight members of the Cost of Living Commission were equally divided upon the suggestion that the "increment value" of land should be taxed. The line of division is instructive: on one side, urging the adoption of this preposterous and unjust device, were Messrs. Tregeah, Veitch, Hobehtson, and Macdonald, and on the other side were Dr. Hight and Messrs. Fairdaikn, Leadlev, and Hall. The four members first named gave no reason why farmers should be singled out for this confiscatory treatment, but the other four members gave quite convincing reasons why farmers should not treated. We have often exposed the injustipe of a special tax on the increment value of land, and wo have over and over again reminded _ the public that tho only excuse (it is no defence) which the cleverest land-taxcfs in England have been able to advance in support of the land increment duty is Sir Edwaiid Grey's viz., that you can most easily jjet at the farmer. Dr. Hight admits, "the general theoretical principle" of an increment tax (as anyone might do), but he insists on conditions which emphatically rule out a tax on increment values in land. Not only should the farmer secure the full fruits of his labour, and the tax be most economically expended, but

(1) There shall l>6 no discouragement to sotflonient and production through the rale of increment tax being fixed so hHi as I'j leave the landowner no means "of recompensing himself for tlio losses incurred by him in bad years out of his income rrceivod in good times.

(2) The vnhintiou slmil l;o made by nn authority whose tenure of office is quite independent of political conditions. (3) A portion of this unearned increment in other incomes than those derived from tli c> ownership of land should alto accrue to the State through taxation. These conditions, of course, arc merely insistence on justice, and, equally of course, they will not be agreed to by the anti-agrarian party. It ever the monstrously unfair attack suggested by the Radicals ia attempted, it will be repulsed, because the farmers will have at their back every non-farmer who likes a squaw deal, and these will br>. a large majority of the nation.

The position of Mr. Willis, the Speaker of the New South. Wales Assembly, is in its way a little object lesson in the theoretically defective character of British Parliamentary systems. Most, people know thai, there U no ouch thing at "tbo British Constitution".; the ImuKial

Parliament huts foundations, as one may nay, of air. In America no situation can arise which cannot be formally, finally, and expressly determined j but in Britain, and in many British States, many insoluble situations in politics arc possible. They never arise in Britain, howover, because there men can safely trust that nobody will shatter tjiosc many assumptions concerning the behaviour of statesmen which have never been falsified. The Speaker of the House possesses greater powers of action than even tho Kinu. Practically nothing restrains him but his own judgment of what is proper. Mit. Wilms has evidently determined upon that exploitation of the Speaker's office which many an observer of Parliament lifts dreamed about' as a magnificent despotic possibility. There may be some way of getting rid of Mr. Wilms other than by dissolving the Parliament, but we cannot see any other way excepting some way as rough and lawless as the way in .which, he was rushed into the Chair. One of the certain results of his disgraceful behaviour will be a statutory delimitation of the Chair's authority—a bad, but as we now see, a not unnecessary thing. The Premier and his colleagues must realise that the Speaker has acted indefensibly, but we shall not be surprised if they prefer tho continuance of Parliamentary outrage to the loss of Ministerial salaries that would certainly follow a dissolution. The Aye, by the way (and the (Sydney Herald makes the same point in other, words) says that although Mit. Wilms thought he was punishing a newspaper proprietary ne was really trampling on the rights of tho section of the public that obtained its political intelligence through the Telegraph. We can remember a Government which sought to punish a newspaper proprietary .and which is now repenting its short-sighted indifference _or blindness to the fact that really its policy, had a counteraction not been applied, would have trampled on the rights of a largo ■body of the'people who depended upon the newspaper in question for important information-