Single Tax.

Te Aroha News, Volume XIV, Issue 2127, 12 July 1898, Page 2

Single Tax .

Mr W. S. Aleen has just published a pamphlet entitled, “ A Few Remarks on the Single Tax. ’ Mr Allen states fairly the connection of the sn.de taxers in New Zealand, and shows the gross iniquity of the proposal by concrete examples. .We quote a passage : —“ Two young men,. C and D, come out to New Zealand. They are steady industrious, careful, and sober, and they soon find .work. They toil for 20 years, and at the end of that time they have each saved £SOO. The one, with his £SOO, takes a block of unim-~ proved land, settles upon it, and manful.y sets to work to improve a'nd cultivate it. The other, D, thinks he has done hard work enough and prefers a life pf eomparative, ease for the future, so with his £SOO ho hires and furnishes, and stocks with beer and spirits; a public-house; C will not get any income from his block of land for some years, and will have to work very hard to render it at all productive. D, o i the other hand, with very little exertion of his own, will probably make from £l5O to £2o® a year. The single tax is passed and becomes law. How will it affect these two men 1 C, the hard-working, industrious farmer, will at once be taxed at the rate of four; percent, or L2O a year ; with *the knowledge that if a store, or a school, or a hall, or a blacksmith’s shop is opened any where near him, his annual ass ssment ; may be raised to L 25 or L3O, or even more. D, the publican, bn the other hand j enjoying his income of Ll5O or L2OO a year, will not be taxed at all.” Mr Allen shows that if the single-tax proposals were brought into operation in New Zealand it would at bnce practically confiscate the property of every landowner, whether large or small, because the land being taxed to the full annual value, the selliug value would be destroyed, and the land rendered valueless to the owner. Mr Allen’.4 pamphlet does not include argument on abstract questions of political economy, but he clearly shows the folly and iniquity of the single tax proposals by such cases as must be familiar to every settler. Pamphlet on sale at “ News” office; paice Id.