Page 4 Advertisements Column 4

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 1988, 25 January 1907, Page 4

THE LAND QUESTION AND THE SINGLE-TAX. (By George.) 111. I congratulate the landlords of Now Zealand on tlio very able champion they have found in the lCditoi' of tlio Gisborne Timks. I also wish to express my admiration for the Kditor’s bold declaration that he is not, ns was suggested, 1 ‘compelled to bow down and worship before Mammon, the god of the monopolists,” but in “as free as air to express what opinions may be expressed within the limits of truth and reason, and if Single Tax dogmas would come within the length of that- tether the monopolist does not exist who could suppress our advocacy of them.” 'These are bravo words, anil I do not lor a moment question the perfect sincerity of the writer. T apologise lo him, and withdraw the suggestion that he is not, a. free man. My point was, and is, that it is dead against the financial interests of newspapers in general to advocate the Single Tax; and this is not denied. I should not enro to be a hoavy shareholder in the Gisborne Times, or in any other newspaper, if it. began championing the. cause of the Single Taxor. It is for the Editor to show (1) that the land of this colony now in private hands does not belong to (lie whole people ; (2) that tlio value of the land is not made by the nation, but by the alleged owners. Until lie does this all bis statements and all his dogmatism —for ho is at times hardly less dogmatic than I am—are of no avail. When ho does this ho will be the first man to do it; when lie does it f will cease advocating the Single Tax. The Editor says the tax would fall on one class only. Hero lie is greatly mistaken. The tax would fall equitably on tlio whole community .for it would fall only on that value which all help to create; and it would fall hoaviest where most wealth is produced .and lightest where least wealth is produced. The hack-blocker would have hardly any tax to pay. Ho would he, ns he ought to be, the least burdened man in the colony. Further reply to the Editor I will reserve for my next and concluding article, when, if lie chooses, ho may reply on the wholo case.

A COMMON DELUSION. Tiie idea is common that' the landless workers can enjoy a largo share of the wealth they produce without taxing and values. It is an idea common oven amongst honest statesmen. The late Mr. Seddon did many things with the object of improving the lot of the landless people and giving them more of the wealth they produce. What has been the result of it all? The purchasing power of wagey has declined 50 per cent.; land values have risen all over the colony, and the benefits of what has been called “Labor Legislation” have been absorbed by advancin grent. The very thing which would have given tlio toiler raoro freedom as well ns moro of tlio wealth he produces, Government left untouched—it allowed the laud tax to remain as it was. It is impossible—as was pointed out by Mr. Ernest Jones, an eminent English barrister and political economist, many years ago—to give the workers moro of the wealth they create without increasing the land tax. Why lias the land tax not been increased? It has not been increased because tlio landless people have been foolish enough to return a majority of landowners at. every election. Increase the land tax? This is what landlord Parliaments will never do. As Tolstoy says, “The landlords will do anything for the workers except get off their backs.” A LUDICROUS IDEA.

“When you come to think ol' it, there is something extremely comical .and absurd in the idea of one.poor mortal slaving all the days of his life to increase the riches of another—often a person who never did a day’s work in his life. It is mainly in civilised countries where this idea is carried out. If you go amongst savage peoples, say the redskins of America, you will find that they never entertained the idea for a moment. It has been said by an American humorist that no matter how unjust the economio system is in which they are born and bred, a people will regard it as a natural and just system until their eyes are opened to its injustice and unnaturalness. If the British race and the other races of human beings were having air meaosured out tt> them at so much per cubic foot (were that possible) they would regard it as the natural dust and divine order of things, and t'hoir pasters and masters would quickly denounce any man as an audacious agitator and revolutionist who should dare to tell them that it was an injustice’ Some of my landless readers will laugh sceptically at this statement. But. that, is the very principle under which they are now living." Air is not more necessary to human existence than land. No man can live without land. Not a narticlo of wealth can he produce without it. You cannot even got at the fish in the sea without using land ; you must go to the land for your boat, and you must go across somebody’s land to get to the sea. Therefore", in living under “landlordism” we are under a system quite as absurd and ludicrous as a system of airlord sand air tax.

Landlordism deprives men of their natural freedom, sets up an unnatural competition between laborers for employment, consequently reduces their wages, prevents them from fully supplying their needs, and thus creates apparent over-production of wealth ; whereas the truth is that tho masses, being robbed by an unjust system, are unable tb supply their needs. Did they receive their just earnings, they would have more than enough to supply themselves most amply with tho good things of this lifo, the effectual demand for all commodities would bo fully equal to the supply, and consequently our shopkeepers and storekeepers and manufacturers would have a quick sale for their stocks, and, of course, at remunerative prices.

LANDLORDISM A SUBSTITUTE EOIt CHATTEL SLAVERY. Landlordism is a substitute for chattel slavery. What was chattel slavery instituted for? Why, that some men might got rich without working. They did not want the slaves, they wanted the fruits of their labor. As time went on men found that there was another and better way of living without work and getting rich out of the fruits of other men’s labor, and that was to own tho soil on which other men worked. Before tho great American war a slaveholder went round tho Southern States tolling his brother slave-hold-ers that' they had made a great mistake, that it was much more profitable to own tho land than tho slaves. “You see,” said he, “that we have to feed and clothe, house and educate those slaves. ISTow, if instead of owning them, wo simply own and monopolise the land we shall not havo to do any of those things. When we have no work for our slaves to do, we have to • maintain them, but if we own the land only we shall not havo to do that. We all know that when we have work for our slaves to do, we have to search for them, hut if we appropriate all the land unto ourselves they will run after us and beg of us to give them some work to do at any remunera, tion, however small.” And he war right. " His brother slave-holders failed to see it, and brought about the war. They seo it to-day, and have no desire to go back. Where formerly they only made their thousands now they make their millions, and they are not in the least responsible for the comfort’ or for the lives of their slaves. The task-masters Lad their severe losses under chattel slavery, hut now they have no such losses. The loss of human life through this now system is infinitely greater than it was under chattel slavery, hut the taskmasters do not bear the brunt of it. The burden and the sorrow of it fall entirely upon the dependents of the 7>oor slaves. This is the iniquitous system T denounce, and I call upon every honest man to say that the land of_ this colony shall lie in practice, as it is now in the theory of the law, the people’s; that, whatever value they give to it by their presence and industry shall he appropriated by taxation for the benefit of all ; that no man shall be taxed upon the fruits of bis labor, but that the whole cost of local and national government shall be defrayed out of the groat natural fund created by the whole community—namely, the unimproved value of land. LANDLORDS CANNOT ESCAPE A LAND TAX. Now, we often hear it said : “What is tho use of taxing rent? The landlord would put the tax on to the rent, and the tenant would consequently be driven into bankruptcy.” If this were so, the policy of taxing rent would be foolisli indeed. Happily it is not so. Every political economist says it is not so. All these thinkers are agreed that a tax on anything of fixed quantity must he paid by the holder of that thing, whatever it may be. Adam Smith, the great Scotch economist, says';— “A tax upon ground rents would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altogether on the owner of the ground rent, who acts always as a monopolist, and