RATING ON UNIMPROVED VALUE.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 45, 21 August 1895, Page 2

RATING ON UNIMPROVED VALUE.

TO THK EDITOR OF THE STAR. Sin, — Iv a letter which appeared in your issue of the 10th instant Mr G - . Wilks says, " I cruery whether the subject has really beeu threshed out iv New Zealand, though it has been in the United States of America, where Mr Henry George and his theories have been laughed to scorn." Some twelve mouths ago. l left America, where I had the honor to bo a member of the Chicago Single Tax Uiub, which was then about two thousand strong. It holds its meetings every Friday in the Schiller Theatre building. This is oue of five similar clubs in Chicago which hold regular meetings in different paits of the city. There is also an " open air brigade," witb band and banners, whose members preach the Single Tax gospel to the unemployed and disinherited, and explain (o them the real cause of their undeserved poverty. Not only are the workers of the world thus organising for their rights, but the press is assisting them. The Chicago Times now gives two columns every week to SiDgle Tax news, and there are not less than twent} -six Single Tax papers published in the United States. Mr George lately received $15,000 (£3000) as a donation from one friend for the gojd of the cause, and, although he may be " laughed to scorn" by those who are unable to see the difference between " land value " and " labor value," the fact is that intelligent people everywhere are beginning to recognise that the value given to land hy the presence of the people is due to tho people, and bhoukl be applied to public purposes. The value uf all improvements should, of course, be exempt from tixition as they are duo to individual industry, but no mdii ihial can create v land value " in the economic sense, and, therefore, no individual can justly own it. 1 eend you by thia mail four Single Tax papers, and should be glad if you would kindly forward them to Mr Wilks. You wiil notice that they are published in Glasgow, San Francisco, Sydney, and Melbourne. I trust that Mr Wilks, in justice to himself as a student o": the Single Tax movem en tj will bo induced to subscribe to one of them, 1 am, e'.c, F. M. Kikg, Hon. Sec , Ground Kent Revenue League. Auckland, 17th August, 1895.