Single Tax.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 117, 13 November 1894, Page 2

Single Tax.

how to nationalise ground rent. (Published by The Ground Rent Here* nue League of New Zealand.) Review by X.P., Feilding. [Article No. 5.] Oa page 25 of this most wonderful production of the Auckland Single Taxers we hare a specimen of their beliefs, and & prophecy. The man Eugene who has just left Wellington with his following of stupid noodles belie Ted —or professed to believe—certain things, and he prophesied that Wellington was to be swallowed np by an earthquake wave five miles high ! No sane person believed his statements or | prophesies. Defoe gives an account of a lunatic who ran through the streets of London during the Great Plague 1 prophesying the end of the world. Dr. Cummings in later times prophesied that the world would come to an end in 1866 ! History is full of accounts of men with single ideas prophesying, but none of their predictions were fulfilled. So in the same way we may conclude these beliefs and predictions of the Single Tax enthusiasts of Auckland will not be fulfilled. On the same page it is stated : "Socialistic ideas are gaining ground daily, and landlordism has no place iv the Socialist's theory." Working men, settlers, and business men, I ask you to read, mark, and learn thiß statement. The writers of this Single Tax pamphlet here acknowledge that it is a Socialistic idea. When writing under my own name, in some articles on Socialism, I pointed out that there were two kinds of Socialism — one practical, the other theoretical -and I said at the time that there were dangers looming ahead caused by the books and pamphlets written and published by closet philosophers who evolve most wonderful theories from their brains for the regeneration of the human race. I cannot in these articles traverse all the theories I have read, but as this pamphlet published by the Ground Rent Revenue League is founded, according to their own statement (page 24) on Henry George's book on • Progress and Poverty,' I will endeavour to show shortly the absurdity of Henry George's theories. But before doing so, let me make a few general remarks on this precious pamphlet. We have land natioaisation in New Zealand now. The State sells land to those who can pay cash. The land is called freehold. The real owner is the State. The State raises revenue from the same either by a Property Tax or by » Land Tax, and the State can take back the land if the taxes are not paid. The so-called owner, the freeholder, cannot take his land away with him to anether country if he gets sick of the social nostrums of the Single Taxers and others of that ilk. The freeholder cannot take his land with him when he dies. The land remains for the State to tax -eternally. But, says some Single Taxer, the Stato ought to keep the unearned increment. I have shown previously there is no such thing as unearned increment on land in the aggregate in New Zealand, and 1 challenge Sir George Grey, Sir Robert Stout, and all the members of the House of Representatives —who talk so much of the unearned increment - and all and sundry, to prove their statements ; and if they cannot do so then all the theories built on this fallacious statement must fall to the ground. This Single Tax business in plain language spells Com muuism. In some parts of Russia land is held in common. Our workmen are infinitely better off than these serfs of the soil, and they know it. In Borue parts of India there is Communism, and there are no people on earth so poor and degraded. Oh! ye Single Taxers, do you want this country to revert to the Communism of the Maoris ? Shall we cast on one side all that generations of good, great, and clever men have taught us, and don the mat of the Maori and each one of us grub at our potato plot for a living? And now ye people who have not been effected by this Single Tax malady, allow me to let you into a secret. These Single Taxers want all the Railways to be run free for passengers,—l will give chapter and verse as well as names by and by for this state* nient — and all the townspeople who have a Saturday or Wednesday half -holiday will be able to take a weekly jaunt free, gratis -all for nothing 1 While some of yo who are bearing all the taxes ; milk oows seven days a week with never a holiday; rising at 2.80 a.m., milk at factory at 7 a.m. ; finishing work each day at 8 p.m. ; ploughing through mud, sludge, rain, and it may be hail and snow, year in and year out ; ground down by local taxes, State Ground Rent, losses of cattle, calves— one person I have heard of haß lost forty out of fifty-two this winter— no Sunday rest for the weary foot and hand ; no pleasant trips on the railway ! " It's oh ! to be a slave Along with the barbarous Turk, Where farmers have never a soul to save, If this is Christian work ! M (With apologies to Tom Hood for slightly altering his lineß.) These Single Taxers say all value comes from land ; then they ought to know that if those working land are prospering, that all others— laborers, artisans, storekeepers, and merchants prosper also. Then, in the name of common sense, why not help those work* ing land to get a better price for wool, mutton, wheat, &c., and not crush them with extra taxation ? Let them find vi better markets, and we shall then have money to spend right royally. There would then be no unemployed, and trad* would boom. I have just received an account of some lambs I sent Home last season. I find my return for the lambs is in the ratio of 2 to 8. Lot 5 equal the price the lambs fetched in London— l receive 2, and the agents and freezing ootnpgnv get 3. Supposing stock were sent ta London *nd realised J#00,006"; the sendeis of the stock wouldget .£200,000 only, and the freezing company and agents would get the rest, ±'800,000. According to tho Socialistic theory, • Labor creates all values, therefore labor is entitled to all values.' The rearers of stock, therefore, ought to receive the amount fetched. The thing is utterly ridiculous. Rearers of stock, of course, expect to pay for freezing, freight, storage, Ac, though they would be delighted, to receive a greater ratio of the proceeds, which they wouiajladly spend in employing moieiabor. Let the Single Taxers help the country to find beitev markets and enable producers to obtain a greater ratio of thp proceeds, and the unewplpypd difficulty wou id Soon flisappear—though there would stiU be poverty, owing to the tendenoies, inherent a.nd fostered, of many who are Jazy and thriftless, and who prefer to squander their earnings rather than save the same.