LAND VALUES AND TAXATION.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2408, 13 March 1915, Page 8

LAND VALUES AND TAXATION.

Sir,—A few words in reply to Mr. Cameron's letter in your issuo of March 4. Mr. Cameron asks what have the towns done to produce the £25,000,000 of community-created land values that have foiind their way into the pockets of the landowner in tho last ten years. My reply is they have created the greater part of. The land values of Wellington City alone more than equal those of the whole of the Wairarapa. A land tax of 3d. in the £ would therefore' hit the town more than the country landowner. I. have not forgotten the inventor of the refrigerator, nor the inventors of the many processes which have brought quicker markets for'our produce. . My contention is that the landowner, whether in town or country, reaps the sole benefit in increased land values. Mr. Cameron, as is usual with many farmers, imagines people flock-to the towns,, because they are too lazy or shiftless to stand the hardships of country life. The truth, however, is; they go to the cities and towns because high land values and land monopoly drives them there. If there existed this distaste for country life as contrasted with town life, how does' Mr. Cameron account for the fact that at every land ballot hundreds of applicants are turned away unsatisfied? Does he contend' these are all applicants from the country? Mr. Cameron asserts it was the farm slavery I deplore than produced a race' of men and women in the past with whom the present pampered youth cannot compare. But there was hope with it as the vitalising factor; the cer.tainty of being able to make a home of one's , own. What chance has a farm hand now at £1 or 255. a week of saving enough in a, lifetime to buy land at £15 up to £80 per acre? And he may attend land ballots till he is grey, and ' yet fail. • The fancy picture Mr. Cameron draws of the "unending luxury" and "turning night into day that he says characterises the towns no doubt suits his audience. To me a more Bombre picture presents itself of multitudes of men and women herded into the towns and okeing out a hand-to-mouth existence which is ever becoming more precarious as land values rise ana food values appreciate. No doubt they do commit the grave offence of occasionally going to the picture theatres at 3d. or 6d. per head. But you see, sir, there are 70,000 people in Wellington and suburbs and perhaps 300 in Makuri, bo it takes a \ery small proportion of tho former to fill the picture shows, as ccmpared with the Makuii populace. Possibly, too, an occasional night off for recreation or rational amusement might even benefit the Makuri farm labourer. In conclusion, sir, let me add this reform (a land tax), incredulous as Mr. Cameron may be, will benefit the farmer more perhaps than anyone else. The real farmer is not anxious to have his values "boosted up." It only means more rates and taxes._ He prefers to live' on his farm and improve it, and not to he eternally living the fevered, restless life of the mere speculator, who seems ti have, in too many eases, supplanted him. He wants his sons to settle near him. Land is too dear for this now. They go away in hundreds to Australia, Canada, or the Argentine, where land is cheaper, because owing to the largo area laud monopoly has not yet been able to work its evil course. A land tax of even 3d. in the £3 will cheapen land and obviate tliis necessity. It will return to tho farmer numerous benefits in tlio way of lightening his customs duties on his machinery and his food. Hut more than all, it will render large areas of land hero available for settlement by the hundreds who are clamouring to use it. Such a tax is in force in New South Wales, and I believe in West Australia, and in the former country the authorities are unanimous as to its excellent results. Why then should wo not apply it to Now Zealand ?—I am, etc. AGIUCOLA.