MR. RANSOM AND HIGH LAND VALUES'

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 31, 7 February 1933, Page 6

MR. RANSOM AND HIGH LAND VALUES'

. (To the Editor.) • Sir.—"Equality of Sacrifice" hits the nail on the Lead when lie says, "I£ farming is to Btay as a private enterprise, then the farmers must be made ... to arrange their own affairs and to bring the land down to a price at which the land will pay to farm. The first and; greatest cost to the farmer is the price of land, or in other words, rent." The land is the iarniers raw material, and the cheaper they" can get their raw material the better jor them and for everybody else—except the farmers who farm the farmer." The farmers who farm the land have got to realise that there can be no real hope for them unless and until they put an end to land monopoly, land aggregation, and land speculation, the' deadliest enemies o£ the farmers, infinitely worse than foreign competition. And the only effective way for the farmers to rid themselves of land monopoly, land aggregation, and land speculation, is, not by de rating farming land and' abolishing- the land tax, but by rating unimproved land values only and-putting on such a substantial land-tax that "farming--the farmer by means of land monopoly, land aggregation, and land speculation will no longer be a paving game.' If the farmers who farm the land have the necessary brains and grit, they can right speedily fi vf, their deadliest enemies notice to quit it they will not use their brains to show true grit, there is no hope for- them whatsoever. Hfeaven itself cannot help them. I am, etc., ' ECONOMIST.