LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2416, 23 March 1915, Page 7

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

* LAND VALUES AND TAXATION. Sir, —I must again beg space to reply to "Agricola's" letter _ which appears in your Saturday's issue. The task is an easy one, by the way, as he has not even attempted to answer my leading question, viz.: What have the townspeople done to earn the £25,000,000 of what he calls "community created value of land." He makes a bald statement "that they have created the greater part of it and that land values in Wellington City alone more than equal tho whole of ihose of the Wairarapa." That is the best he can do. He cannot even make an attempt to disprove my statement that "the £25,000,000 has been almost wholly created by the inventor of the refrigerator, the overseas millions who buy our produce and the toilers on the land. The trio named above have created your city values as well. This is easily proved. What would happen if the whole of the farmers who now do their trade via Wellington were to export their produce and import their goods via Napier instead? Could your city community uphold your' land values? Wellington would be more defunct than the whale that was washed up at Island Bay a year or so ago. "Agricola" contends 'that the landpwners alone reap any benefit from increased land values. I have conclusively shown that the'farmer is almost wholly the man who has created land values of any kind in New Zealand. Now, why should he not be entitled to those values? The townspeople are only middlemen, handling our exports and imports, making a profit on both and consequently living upon us. With regard to the hardy men and women of the past and his statement that "they had hope as the vitalising factor and the certainty of being able to make a home of their own." They had as many things pertain then aB now, just two" in number, viz., death and taxes—the latter our friend's hobby. Let me take you back to those times, before refrigerating machinery was perfected. Interest rates ran from 6 to 10 per cent. My brothers and self sent some 800 fat wethers away one year and netted the magnificent sum of 2s. 6d. per head for them. One of our very best farmers of to-day rolled up his swag and left his farm about that time. Hope? Certainly. Eh—where did they come in? Scarcely' at all. Thrift, the ability to make almost every article required on the farm, and cast-iron constitutions came in instead. Could your average young man and woman of to-day do it? Never!

Regarding farm hands' wages of 20s. to 255. a week. Will "Agricola" come to Makuri and be introduced to a nine-teen-year-old boy who earned up to six pounds per week this season? Will young men of this stamp require "to wait" till they are grey-headed befor® they can get a farm? "Agricola" mentions picture palaces in connection with rational amusements. Beautiful taste truly. In my opinion there is nothing doing so much to degrade our young people of New Zealand as the average picture palace. Let me give your City Council an urgent tip. Municipalise every one of them and screen pictures that will be instructive and amusing as well. Our Makuri farm labourer can find healthier sport in a picnio down our beautiful gorge, handling a trout rod, or last, but not least, a very rational, and what ought to be (if our Defence Department would only assess it at its true value) our national sport, an afternoon on our local rifle range. It is true a few farmers go to Australia and Argentine, but they almost always come back sadder and wiser men. In conclusion, I desire to point out where "Agricola" has tied himself in a knot, hanged himself with his own rope, so to Bpeak. The English of his words about taxation, in the latter part of his letter, is practically this: "The best way for the farmer to keep taxation down is to be taxed 3d. in the pound now and keep the selling value of his land down even though he may wish to sell. He will thus dodge possible taxation in the future by paying it now." Good idea! What? —I am, A. J. CAMERON. Makuri. PTliis correspondence is now closed. —Ed. Dominion.]