LAND HO!

Patea Mail, 5 July 1881, Page 3

LAND HO!

“ Land Ho ” is the title of a pamphlet on the land question which is written in support of a system of “ Nationalising the land of New Zealand,” the argument taking the form of a conversation in tlie year 1983, descriptive of the various steps by which such a system was adopted in 1883, and detailing the great benefits accruing therefrom. The modus operandi advocated is the passing of a “ National Land Bill ’’ for resuming all land sold to individuals in the colony, giving the owners in exchange government debentures at six per cent, on a basis of valuation made by the owners themselves, in obedience to the provisions of a “ Land Tax Act ” previously passed. Having thus made the state the universal landowner, the author advocates the letting of the estates in blocks on twenty-one-yoar leases, at eight per cent, with various provisions for encouraging permanency of occupa-* tion, at fair prices. The benefit to be derived is the retention by the state of the unearned increment, which is eventually, in the author’s opinion, to result in the abolition of taxation, railway freights, harbour and wharfage dues, and the millennial generally, with a surplus land revenue of eight millions sterling in about the year 1933. The whole world would then, the author hopes, have reached perfection by a similar process.