THE PROGRESSIVE LEAGUE

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 365, 4 May 1889, Page 6

THE PROGRESSIVE LEAGUE

Auckland May ?. The usual meeting of the Progressive League was held on Monday evening. The President occupied the chair. Mr A. Withy's address on " Land Nationalisation " was listened to with great interest. The subject was a continuation of the previous debate, " What shall we do with our unemployed ?" Mr Withy said there were several theories in existence which professed to meet the difficulty. He would notice them in their order : (1 ) Free trade in land. Its advocates would do away with entails. Land should be bought and sold like any other article. Under the present systom big estates gob bigger, and small ones smaller. England was not the only offender, for in California one estate contained 60,000 acres, and one in Dakota 100,000 acres. (2) Peasant proprietorship. The theory was to divide all the land equally amongst the presentinhabitants, but thio would not give satisfaction, for some is better than other. Lord Ashbourne's Act merely took the land from the owners and gave it to the farmers ; it didn't settle the question, for by increasing the number of small owners, it created more interest on the side of landowners. In France, where there was a system of peasant proprietorship, a man divided his land amongst his family. Extracts from a French writer were read to show that instead of this system being a step neai er land nationalisation, it veaMy built up a rampart of small owners which protected the larger one?. In fact, it acted as a lightning conductor, conducting harmlessly to the ground those forces which would otherwise rend and break up the big estates. (3) Land nationalisation with compensation. The State was to take the land and lease it ; no sub-letting to be allowed. Herbert Spencer says if we could get at the ones who stole the land we should know what to do — take it without compensation ; but the present holders, who have inherited it or bought it, should be compensated. This, Mr Withy said, was wrong. He said that the people who make the wealth have the best right to it. It was population crowding into a place which made land so valuable. He considered that landlordism reduced us to a state of chattel slavery. (4) By the single tax theory all taxes would be abolished except that on land. This tax would be a small one to start with, but would be gradually increased untilib absorbed all the giouncl l-enb. He said that it would be a good thing for the morals of the landlords, for it saved them from lobbing the people. Tho land was made for ah the people, therefore the people had the best right to the ground i-ent, which should be paid to the State. Mr Withy favoured the single tax, for it was a direct tax, and direct taxes were best, being more easily and cheaply collected. He claimed for the single tax that it reduces the complexity of government ; takes ground rents and uses them for public purposes ; that capital now locked up in land would be set fiee ; that it leads to absolute free trade ; paves the way for a federation of all English-speaking nations now barred by hostile tariffs ; and eventually opeus the way to the millennium. A warm discussion followed, in which* Me&srs Farrington, C. T. Penshaw, Pheney. White and West took part. Mr Fairington objected to people who owned land being called robbers. Money could be invested in a bank and interest received on it, and it was all right, bub if the same money were invested in land, that man would be called a robber. He denied the assertion that land nationalisation would set capital free ; for when the Governmenb took his land they took his money, which was locked up in it. He thought it would be a haul thing lor the New Zealand Government to seize the land which they had sold to private peisons without compensating them. Messrs West and C. T. Renshaw spoke on the side of land nationalisation, referring co land monopoly and its effect on wages, etc.