Rangitikei Advocate. TUESDAY, AUGUST 6. 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8882, 6 August 1907, Page 2

Rangitikei Advocate. TUESDAY, AUGUST 6. 1907. SECOND EDITION. EDITORIAL NOTES

THE Canterbury farmers are evidently being aroused to protest against the aggression of the socialists. At a meeting of farmers called by the North Canterbury branch of the Farmers’ Union Mr Leadley moved—‘ ‘ That in view of the large annually recurring surpluses any increase in dircet taxation is unnecessary ; that the proposal to differentiate between the owners of city properties and the owners of country lands, to the great disadvantage of .the latter, is at once anomalous and unjust.; that no further increase in the graduated laud tax should be imposed unless it is accompanied by a corresponding increase in the income tax.’’ -He pointed out that the Endowment Bill was really land national fiation "in disguise, an3*- fhat the last clause in the Taxation Bill would make every man a spy upon his neighbour. It meant that if he knew a man who had manipulated his property so as to evade the graduated tax, he could be compelled to disclose all he knew about! that neighbour’s property transactions. He also objected to the proposal to increase the taxation of land owners. In the first place-it was unnecessary. We did not want the ijnd a country that was in' the habit of having surpluses pf thjee-qnarters of

i million should not need to increase its taxation. The tax was a class tax, aimed at a small section of property owners. Sir Joseph Ward had said’he expected to collect £90,000 of additional revenue from this source. That amount of money would come out of the pockets of between 100 and SOO people. The Government had invented a new crime—the crime of holding more than a certain amount of country property. The Government made a distinction in clause 0 between those who held property in business sites in the cities and those who hold property

in the country. A man who held £40,000 of land in a town paid 25 per cent less in the graduated tax than the country owner. Many of those men, who were to be thus penalised, had been pioneer settlers who had bought their land from it. A mathematical friend of his had supplied him with calculations to show that these men could have done better for themselves if they had not bought land. Take the case of one who purchased 10,000 acres at £3 an acre. The laud was now worth, say, £2O an acre, or £300,000. But if the settlor had invested his £20,000 at 5 per cent, ho would now have been worth £373,666 13s 4d, or £176,660 13s 4d more than ,he had got by putting his money into laud. It was most unfair and unjust to try to deprive these men of their honest possessions in the manner proposed by the Government. Mr Leadloy incidentally quoted a letter written by the late Hon. J, Ballauce in 1883, strongly and explicitly condemning the ideas of Henry George. The laud policy of the Government was socialistic, and Socialism was the religion of the unfit. No brave strong soul adopted it. The socialist sought to drag down those above him, that he might rise a little higher in the social scale. The taxation proposals were unnecessary, unjust and impolitic.