THE POLICY OF THE LATE HON. JOHN BALLANCE.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 68, 17 September 1895, Page 2

THE POLICY OF THE LATE HON. JOHN BALLANCE.

Letter No. 8. TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAB. Sib,—Part of the late Mr Ballance's policy has been carried out, and the Cheviot and other estates purchased by the State are not realising five per centum per annum on their outlay. This has been shown during the present, session in the House, thus proving what I have long ago contended that the legislation is founded on a false bads. Moreover, there is the cost of an army of officials who manage the accounts and correspondence of these estates to pay which money comes out of every tax* payer's pocket, whether a workingman or a " social pest." But, because lam a private person and not a public pott- ■ tician like Mr Ballance was, my opinion goes for very little with. some people. Yet, nevertheless, I am right, and Messrs. Ballance, Stout. Seddon, Mackenzie, and their following are wrong, and they are passing laws on this wrong and false basis, and the logical outcome will be the biggest and most disastrous mess that has ever been made by, any country whose history I am acquainted with. There are signs already inthetir. Did those unfortunate owners of the many runs and stations mortgaged,to the Bank of New Zealand obtain any unearned increment ? lhere are about three hundred thousand acres of land in the hands of the Bank, Has the Bank made any unearned increment ? No,' a dead loss year by year. Did Mr Balfence go into these or similar details ? Oh I no, it was not necessary to enter into unnecessary details, it was quite sufficient that Henry George had written about the snbject; but mark, my read* ers, there are very few really big runholders in the colony, contrasted with the number of the artisans in towns with whom it was popular to cry," Burst up the runs; tax them off the face of the colony!" I may as well state here that lam not in favor of big blocks of land being held by one individual. lam here only arguing against the unjust, impolitic, and most unstatesmanlike, manner of splitting up these runs. There are better, safer, and more just methods of doing so, but because the ideas I am hinting at were not in Henry George's book on " Progress and Poverty "our Government are not clever enough to evolve them; but legislate on the lines laid down by Henry George — an impracticable closet philosopher I I ask. was it the part of a true, noble, broad-minded Statesman to set one class of people in this colony to worry and gobble up another and smaller class? Or was it the part of a political trickster and charlatan ? I leave my readers to supply the answers. Am I not justified lv saying we want a better set of men in the House—men, not skittles ? I am, etc., Geobge Wiles, Feilding, 15th September, 1895.