HENRY GEORGE ON NEW ZEALAND POLITICS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2089, 23 August 1890, Page 3

HENRY GEORGE ON NEW ZEALAND POLITICS.

Henry George, in a letter to the New Yorlr Standard, says of New Zealand's G.O.M. : I wa"* especially glad to meet Sir George Grey, and t» find bis 80th year sittiDg so lightly upon him, It is worth goinsj far to meet suoh a man—3oldier, scholar, etatesmaß, and political leader. Aa aristocrat by birth, who, when hardly thirty, wielded the powers of a dictator; who has been four times governor of important colonies ij the most important criiis of their, affairs, and then premier of the colony iD which he bad made his home, who is yet an intense democrat, and <vho, bnsour'ed,. by disappointment and undaunted by defe.alß, remains in the evening of life ; all'the faith and hope that areeOmmly aßsocated with youth. Ten .years'ago Sir Gebrgs Grey when premier of this colony; ihtrodu'ced the thin end of the wedge,by carrying a measure for the imposition of a. direct tax on the vajua of land, irrespective of improvements, but the great land owners quickly rallied and his majority rJaeite.ck fway. At the enuaing election he was defeated, and the new ministry giving-?a. sop Jo the poorer taxpayers by an N exemption, substituted for the tax ou land, values a tax on all property. The fioaaciai arid land rings rallied and appointed a dictator ia the person of Major Atkinson, who has"continued as such ever since (with the exception of the Stout— Bailaooe interragnum). He at once repealed Grey's land tax, increased the tax on tea and sugar, and gave us the property tax. Millions of capital that would otherwise have been invested here have been driven away by this iniquitous tax. It has,'and is, driving away the bene and sinew of the calony at the rate of 5000 a year. It is fleecing, the unfortunate people that circumstances compel to remain ; it is plundering the settler, the tradesman and the merchant, while driving out of cultivation immense areas of good land. For the last ten years it has blighted the prospects of the colony, and yet the man who imposed it sits crowned and sceptred upon oiir cnlonial throne. Oh 1 poor New Zsalsnd will you never awake for manhood's sake end hurl those robbers of the poor into political hades. Ye dolts, you call yourselves men } You gather in your thousands to political veering, and there, instead of raising your strong right hand in terrible earnest, yeu tamely bleat in eaob other's faces like so many wether lambs waiting their turn to be shorn. I