THISTLEDOWN.

Te Aroha News, Volume XI, Issue 1738, 11 May 1895, Page 2

THISTLEDOWN.

“ A man may jest and tell the truth.” > —Horace. « It is often well to do evil that good may come/ is a motto generally credited to the points hut too commonly practised, if not preached, in all churches. Two examples will suffice. Pew churches are built without incurring debt, and the debt is gaily incurred in the hope of paying it off by the gambling of bazaars. The poor Jesuits have had to bear the brunt of heavy popular prejudice, hut we know on good authority that it is a. bad sign when , all men speak well of us. Most people, I fancy, take their ideas of the Jesuits.from ‘The Wandering Jew,’and hot a few Protestants, I further imagine, have never forgiven Loyola’s disciples for stemming the apparently -irresistible tide of the Reformation. - * - „a? . •» ’

In small things how often we will carry out the same motto, yet the stability of the ’Universe depends on law. Luckily we cannot alter physical laws and violation of moral axioms, if at all habitual with us, soon brings us up with a round turn. Pew, even the most confirmed atheis's, oan soberly and seriously deny that the laws of the UnivvAie work on the whole for. good, yet the exceptions sorely puzzle us. How much worse it would be if we could control them. A inainac’s grasp on the lever of a steam engine is an absurdly inadequate parallel, or a baby trying to repair the works of a watch it has palled to pieces. If we want to go into casuistry no doubt we can easily imagine cases where to go wrong seems imperative for fear of doing a. greater wrong. . A murderer pursuing' his victim fiods me sitting-at a cross-roads and asks me which way he has gone. Am I tell a lie and save the fugitive or stick to the truth and risk his life ? Such questions are more easily asked than answered, but the best guide in morals is the reverse of that in prudence in morals, first thoughts are generally the best as-then conscience .speaks unbribed by ulterior considerations. I have put the question to a plain practical man who has seen life in f pretty well every aspect. Commencing in a whaler, he has served in the United States Navy, in Yon Teinpsty’s corps, has been a miner, a I bashm- n a farmer, and; a navvy, and his a-tswcr as to his conduct ih*sdch a case is I ‘ [ should tell'him the truth and follow him fc i prevent mischief.’ All cannot be exp icte 1, however, to have the! courage, the s •'■en<rth, or perhaps even the means* to follow the heroic course. • - * • - * . * Henry George is held in low estimation by a Nelson , teacher. He says, ‘ I have found his work very useful for my logic class as it contains specimens of all the fallacies that , could possibly be gathered together.’ The first consideration that forces itself on the mind when we hear of the unearned^increment is that it presupposes an unearned decrement as infallibly as black presupposes white or night day We have not far to go for examples. Which has been unearned in the Waikato swamps 2 The fundamental-fallacy', at the root; off it is, however, the doctrine that the labour bestowed on a product is the. measure of its value; If this were so the gold quarred out of the face at Mount Morgan would be less, valuable than the same Article: got from a six inch leader in Waiorongomai. Ask the farmer’s opinion with wheat at two and threepence a bushel, or the dairyman’s with butter at sixpence a pound.- Supply and demand reprttate the value of everything, and though labour is a necessary - factor in the production of all articles, of. demand the amount of labour involved"has in most cases mighty little t'o do with the price except'in articles required only by alieuited number Again we hear-of the unearned increment of labour' - Thenii.yvy,the farm-labpurer, the miner, the parrpn, the lawyer and the doctor would' have nothing to,do and nothing lb receive' were it hot for the unearned increment. For it is defined as the va hie given to an artiole by the existence o’ o her men apart from any labour or capital expended: by the owner,-' .

To catch the speculative non-improving holder of land, the present Ministery introduced a Bill, making it optional with the ratepayers of a district to levy all but water or gas rates on either the gross value as now, or the unimproved va'ue. It has passed the House of Representatives three times. I think, hut been rejected by the Council last year by the narr ow majority of two. The feature in it to which many objected was to' my mind its best point, namely, leaving it (o the opinion of the ratepayers. Mr Lang, member- for Waipa and long Chairman of the Waipa County Council, was the only member of the Opposition who supported it, as that County suffers cruelly from land-held by absentees aad non-irap-oyers'. Yet, though I thoroughly respect Ml- Lang, both personally and as a man of large experience, great common sense and thorough faiifiess, and though l am strongly in favour 'of getting at the man. who does Lis best to. throttle, a district while hanging by for a chance to sell land on which he hp.e never expended. aßhilliug in money or labour, . I feel compelled to disagree wibli putting rate" solely on unimproved values. As was forcibly pointed out by ;various it would; inflict intolerable Tiaydship on poor men while relieving the rich. Men . with good land, and capi cal .to improve, would be. relieved of a considerable share of rates, and as tbe deficiency would have to be made up it would fall on men. with poor land incapable of profitable improvement, or on men without means to improve.' Again sales would " press most heavily on men when making a start just when the pinch would be felt most. Thirdly, the conveniences provided by ratis, as roads, bridges, etc., by improvers.' But the* most cardinal injustice would be throwing all the Hospital and Charitable Aid rates on the bare

Get at the, speculative holder by all manner of means, but get at him directly. Give local Bodies power to put a double or four-fold rate ;n a' man who leaves bis land a nursery for thistles, but don’t break the back of every holder of a small grazing ruu, and every one who takes up a bush section in order to bark the shins of the lauded usurer. - Iu such countries as the Bay of Islands the Government and the Natives are the landowners, holding out for the unearned increment,.holding between them seven-twelvths of the County area, and the MaOries do most of the damage with roads. Here the act would simply be runious. One firm alone sends fifteen to twenty tons of gum every week by Maori bullock teams, twenty miles to port and receives a similar amount of goods on the return journey. Under thiß act the firm Would get off with a nominal , rate which, the poorer settlers would have to make up.

As this is a matter of great' importance to every settler I hope someone else will take it up, for I. am by no moans wedded to my opinion, and should like to see the question thoroughly threshed out. 'IXPAX.