SINGLE-TAX AND LEASEHOLD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81849, 24 September 1906, Page 2

SINGLE-TAX AND LEASEHOLD.

We notice that Mr Massey, in his speech at New Plymouth the other day, referring to the new Land Dill, said that the Government had surrendered to the leaseholders and land nationalisers. On other occasions, we have seen the charge made that they had surrendered to the leaseholders and single taxers states :he llawkcs Bay "Herald." There is a common impression that the singletaxer and the leaseholders hold similar views 011 the land question. That is a mistake. Mr Fowlds, for example, is a single-taxer, while Mr Mnlar is a leaseholder. We quoted, the other day, from a speech made by Mr 1-owlds last session in which he said that lie did no greatly care for the leasehold. His idea—which is the same as that enforced by Mr Henry George—is that the Government shou.d by means of a single-tax 011 land, raise all the revenue they require for administrative purposes. With that view, he would lather see the land of the colony parcelled out among' a class of freeholders. If that wefo done, a'l could be treated alike, and there would be no favoured class such as the Government has set up tinder the lease in perpetuity. It' must be remembered that the present policy of the Government resy.lts in a loss to the revenue. If we take the four and a half millions worth of land purchased within the last fewyears, it is easy to calculate that the Government must lose something like ,£20,000 per annum. 011 such land as is let on lease, they are receiving barely enough to pay interest on the loans incurred in the purchase of the freehold. The rest of the population lias to help to make up the loss. The single taxcr \vou'd not, \\v imagine, view this stale of things with satisfaction. His idea would be to get the land off the hands of the Government at once, and then impose a tax, graduated,' of course, which wou cl fall on all alike, whether they had bought from the Government or from a private person. How Mr Fowlds has squared these views with these which are exposed in the j.and Rill, we do not know. We are n't in favour of the single tax as such, but there is this merit in the theory, that it recognises the fact that there is nothing- in the scheme of retaining the freehold in the State which cannot equally well bo secured by a land-tax.