Unimproved Land Values Tax.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 28 February 1914, Page 3

Unimproved Land Values Tax.

i Under the auspices of the local | branch of the Social Democratic | Party, Mr J. Robertson, M.P. delivered an address on the above question last evening in the Oddfellows' Hall, Levin. In opening his address the speaker said that the tax on unimproved land values would fall upon that section of the people that did not produce wealth, but took from it. The present recognised basis of taxation was on the principle that those who possessed great wealth should contribute through the State in order to assist and relieve those who were less fortunate. This socialistic principle was in force in practically all civilized nations 01 the world. The land question is a very old one, and the aggregation of land played a great part in the decay of the older civilisations . The Mosaic Law provided that to prevent aggregation, at the end of every fifty years the land was to be given back to the original owners or their descendants. Rent u - the difference between the least productive and the most productive piece of land in use, and given private ownership of land and the free competition for its possession rent will increase to the point that leaves the worker on the land a bare existence. For every id per lb that butter fat has risen during the past years m Taranaki land values have risen £4 per acre. Thus the increased price of butter-fat is swallowed up in

rent or its equivalent—interest on the increased capital necessary to enter upon such land, and this is the whole tendency of the law of rent. For the taxes paid by the farmer to the central government or to the local bodies he* gets a return in the shape of roads, ! bridges, railways, education, etc., but rent is simply a payment for his right to go on the land—his right to live. A land tax on land values is not a tax upon the industry of the farmer, but a tax upon rent, and with the tax falling upon rent land values would fall at once. The taxes required by the central Government should be paid by those who reap the most benefits from the expenditure of public money. Public expenditure on roads, bridges and railways adds enormously to land values and as they rise rent or its equivalent, interest on the increased capital required, rises. At present the total taxable unimproved value of land is £212,000,000. and of this £85,000,000 is rural land so that the great bulk of the tax would fall on the towns and not on the farmer. If this tax was imposed the customs duties could be removed to an equivalent amount,-and this would result in a saving to the small farmer as under the present system he pays just as much through the Customs as the large landowner. It is becoming harder every year for a man to get on the land for whereas wages have risen 25 per cent in the last 20 years, land valeus have risen 400 per cent. 3111 the benefits resulting from Advances to Settlers and other measures to help the small farmer have beon nullified by private monopoly. At the conclusion, after a discussion, a hearty vote of thanks was accorded to Mr Robertson for his address.