Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) Suivant la verite. SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 1884. TAXATION IN NEW ZEALAND.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 111, 5 April 1884, Page 2

Manawatu Standard (PUBLISHED DAILY.) Suivant la verite. SATURDAY, APRIL 5, 1884. TAXATION IN NEW ZEALA ND.

In an article upon taxation, " Labour,'\ after renewing various modes of raising revenue, says : " The. tax, and the only tax which can be made to avoid the injustice 1 , is & lax upon laud. - And it is both natural andiust ''that it should be so. Direct ly or indirectly, tlie land of each State is the source of its wealth. This is the property -not of a class/ hut of the people at large. The people it is alone that give the value of the land; their increase, their labour,; their very existence lead year after year to its enhanced value. It may be saicFtbat when, it; is, sold the mew owner has-' n right to these things, but this is a hollow fallacy. The owner has a rigfet tv the value given by his o*n labour and his own capital, and no one will grudge* ihipi'tbat, has »ib right •(iimess he^ 1 pay« for it) to the increased value to the land which springs from the labour of otlur people, and the capital for4he use ol which they pay. Lit, then, the :tasAilioiias far as possible; be put upon the land. Not, that is, upou the iroprovemeuts oi.the land, because that is a partial form of the property tsix~with all its attendant; 'evils '-^ but "-upon the land itself. If it is coun.•trvj .fowdj f lift •it - .be taxed; at the--rafle ' of land m ifhe district, if town land at the value of unutilised sections similarly situated. By such a^KJAoJ^iHa injured. The owner gives back but a part.. of the value jwhich is given to his land by the HbiW'r of Uhers/ "He pays nothing for ' the improvements for which it may be he has borrowed the money. Ii he has - bopowed it : well and expended it wisely, he will no d.oubt obtain a lea&onable return for what he has. boriowedj but with thib the people has nothing to do. The land is their original propet ty, and every value which ia added to it by them and not-by-the present possessor ,is ; a. value which the peujile have a right to shaie. To this there should be no exceptions. The principal oi exemptions is a false one, and confesses itself unjust at the vjjryj outset. \i it is just that land should pay according to Valu'6, then it is just that all land should do so. There is no J roul ground of eyerrij ting the hold; ings worth' less ' than tHree hundred, two hundred, or'on'e hundred. .The land of the Stale meiins all the*iand,or it menus none of it. Imjosed m this wav, the tax would not , be trifling, and it nou ld inffiease yent l^y jejik As Kettienyjut the. return would advance-

Siilo I.v siiii; with this population, side by .side with makM-kl pro^pevits', would advance year by year the pro-poi-tioi's m which all the burdens of State would lie. paid for out of the increased value of the lands. i