The Daily News SATURDAY, JUNE 22. SINGLE-TAX FADDISTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 22 June 1907, Page 2

The Daily News SATURDAY, JUNE 22. SINGLE-TAX FADDISTS.

I Cranks New Zealand lias in plenty, buL their crankiness as a rule does not extend to a desire to injure thmcsclves for the benefit 01' their fcllow-mcl), although uJi political crunks assume this virtue. Single-Lux is a form of crankiness from which people who do not own any land sutler, and there are a l.irjje number of siugie-iaxers in Parliament, including a prominent .Minister. The siiigio-tix means, shortly, that nothing' but land .hall b:: {axed. Tile assumption is, 01 course, tint as the land produces everything—from a pair of socks to St. l'aiii's Cathedral, or from a potato to a menagerie—it alone should be taxed. If is a comforting theory to the man who lives in a tenement and j who owns no land. If the single-tax r were popular political cranks in tin's 1 country would say more about it and air th'ir opinions.- Single-tax is good for a country which is absolutely independent of every country. That is to say, any country which produced all • it consumed and had no import trade at all, would be justified in taxing only the land. But in a country like New Zealand, which, although containing so few people, yet gathers £2,500,000 per year through the Customs, the folly of single-Lax is obvious. Single-tax is the other word for free-trade. If the goods representing two and a-half million pounds iu Customs duties were admitted free because all the country's revenue came from the land tax (the singletax), in justice it would be only right for New Zealand to be able to tax the land in Europe, Asia or Africa which produced the goods. Which is absurd. Therefore, the single-tax is absurd, except, as we have said, the country that uses it is entirely self-supporting. Then, again, there is a great popularity iu ' New Zealand for rating on the unim- I proved value of land. Older single-tax the unimproved land valuo rating would certainly favor the ''big'' man, for the capitalist might build "palatial" build- , ings on his land, while his poorer neighbor, with the same size and value of land, would be rated similarly. 'The unimproved value rating under the single-tax would defeat the alleged object of the cranks' mission, which is said tn be to place the heaviest burdens en the shoulders financially strongest to bear them. The young country that is almost totally dependent on the raw products of the land for the purchase of the necessities that pay two and a-half j million pounds in Customs duties, eanI not afford to load (he source of income inordinately unless the source of income returns the income direct and not by 1 impost. The obvious effect of the single-tax which would produce freetrade would be to minimise the number of settlers, who, under free-trade, could live more cheaply on imported poods a than oo local] v-;;own fiiiics. T'rea- | trade might be reasonable enough for New Zealand, but not under single-tax. and only while the industries of the co L lony are iu their infancy. Single-lax and frci-frnde mixed, would .turn New Zealand inio a Sahara as quickly as pos.-ihle. The suppression of sinirle-tax cranks is one of the chief duties of the peop'e.