Land Under Socialism.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 22, 4 August 1911, Page 15

Land Under Socialism.

It has been said that private ownership of land lies at the foundation of all exploitation. But if all land were publicly owned, exploitation to the fullest extent would prevail through the private ownership of sOcially-Worked machines. On the other hand, Avere all such machinery socially oAvned and land remain in private hands, ! the measure of exploitation Avould be no less. But would- it? Land that cannot now be used for exploitation has no value, consequently Ji is not land that possesses the value but the exploitation by means of land. Let us suppose that the Socialist State should take all rents, should make loans on land at cost, should inaugurate a system wherein the labourer received the full social value-of his toih The oAvne'r of land could no longer use land bo get something for nothing in the shane of rent, neither could he hire others at a profit; he Avould only get the results of HIS labour. Land would then have neither value nor price," and no one could sell land if he wanted to, for no one Avould need to buy a job. Basic ownership of land ahvays rests in the State, but improvements are the result of individual labour, usually, and hence may be bought and soldi Such sales would-necessarily carry Avith them the land that contained the improvements, and that circumstance could not enhance the price and might even lessen it.

By FRANCIS AT WOOD.

So why should any farmer's pro* gramme take the stand that land will cease to be "sold" under "Socialism?.: And, more important, why should tho comrades who aro not doing .the hard work tha£ is done by the farmer, the comrades that get their Jiving by other means than manual labour, insist that, while changes in the direction of Socialism are constantly taking place, why should they insist in the face of election and membership returns that. Socialism itself is many years in tho future and that the solution of the land question itself is in the dim's and misty future some "fifty or one hundred years?" It is not within the range of probability that Socialists will bo making <the laws in a very short time, and, when they have put ah end to rent, profit, and interest, that the land question will have automatically disappeared ? ■ ' The need of stating Socialistic truth so it may be understood is nowhere 1 more pressing than where it concerns the farmer, nor is there any problem that confronts us less understood. It is imperative that we express observes clearly and unequivocally on the things Aye purpose to do, both in tho transition period and in the co-opera-tive commonwealth, in so far as we are able to do so and always subject to orders of- the membership of the partft itself.—"Chicago Socialist." -