The Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, MAY 13, 1884.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1177, 13 May 1884, Page 2

The Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, MAY 13, 1884.

SIR GEORGE GRE7'B NONSENSE. Sir George Grey, at Cbristchurch, recently, said that Canterbury had been ruined by the land having been sold originally too dear. He said that in order to prevent the poor man from getting land the rich men of Canterbury fixed the price at £3 per acre, £1 of which was to go to the Church, and that it was to this price having been put on it we owe our present depression. What scoundrels those early settlen of Canterbury must have been to be sure. They actually made themselves pay £3 per acre for the land which they might hare had for 10s, and then threw the land open to free selection. Really those early settlers had funny ways of protecting their own interests. Now, let ui see what would have been the result of selling land at 10s an acre, the price to which Sir George Grey admitted he reduced it. Simply that the man who had sufficient money to buy 3000 acres at £3 per acre would have sufficient to buy 10,000 at 10s, and that the estates of Canterbury would have been six times larger than they are. Yet Sir George Grey said the object of charging £3 per acre was to enable a few to monopolise the land ; and the meeting cheered him, and resolved that he was the fit and proper person to lead the people of Nev ■ Zealand. We have never come across a more glaring instance of the gullibility of tli« people. Rea'ly, it is pitiable that people should be led away by such arrant claptrap, What has really destroyed Canterbury is that the land was sold too cheap. Wc do not wish to be misunderstood. Tn our opinion the land ought never to have been sold—it ought to have been leased, and if that had boon dr.nc, the rents from Canterbury alone would

now pay the expenses of governing the whole colony. But there is no use in pursuing that subject further,al though it is the source of all the depression. The land was sold, and the question is, Was £3 per acre too much for it ? Most undoubtedly, no. The population was so small at the time, the number of laborers so few, and money so scarce, that even if land at 10s per acre had the pffect of settling a few snail holders more in homesteads of their own the good thus done would hare been more than counterbalanced by the evil of much larger estates than there are and hare been. Besides this, the high price at which land in Canterbury was sold helped to pay off our liabilities, and only for that our national debt would have been larger by the difference between the amount gained by selling land at £2 per acre and what it would h<»ve been if sold at 10s, or else we should not hav« the same railway and road convenience that we have. If there was a bit of wisdom exhibited in dealing with lands anywhere it was in Canterbury, for the comparatively high price charged for it helped to pay for the public works that enhanced its value afterwards. What really happened was this. Selling land at £2 per acre (we shall aot take the £1 for the church into account) enabled the few who then had money to buy up the large blocks of land—they would have six times larger blocks if the price had been 10s—they held these until the public works gave increased value to them, and then they sold them at ruinously high prices. It is the high prices which have been obtained at tho more recent sales that has ruined Canterbury, and not the price Government charged for the land, for the people finding no other land to buy gave more than the land was worth, and thev now find it impossible to pay off the interest on their borrowed money. There were only two ideas in the whole of Sir George Grey's speech : the one we have referred to, and the <; uueained increment." John Stuart Mill first coined this phrase, and as it sounds well it ie used by persons who do not understand its meaning as well as by those who do. Its meaning put simply, is the increased value given to land by public expenditure and increase of population. That the •' unearned increment " belongs to the State is beyond all dispute sound political economy, but how to get at it is a question nobody has yet solved. Vor instance, Mr James Guild bought Trevenna a couple of years ago at its present market value. That land was bought originally, probably, at £2 per acre; Mr Guild probably gave £2O per acre for it, and the difference between the original and present value, after deducting the value of improvements, is the " unearned increment." Who has the " unearned increment " now. Has not Mr Guild paid it over to the previous owner, who does not now own the property and consequently cannot be got at. On the other hand, Mr John Hayhurst ii the original purchaser of his estate, and there the " unearned incremett" is certainly, but it would not be fair to Mr Hayhurst to have to " shell it out" while the previous owner of Mr Guild's estate is allowed to retain the money in his pocket. Sir George Grey was asked if he was in favor of a progressive land tax, and he replied, "Get the power to tax the * unearned increment' first." He, however, failed to show how this could be done, and the reason is, because it is impossible, The fact is, Sir George Grey does not seem to know what he is talking about, or else he is trying to create a revolution in this colony, and the sooner people settle down and realise it the better.