"THE CHIEF NATIONAL QUESTION."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8380, 14 March 1907, Page 5

"THE CHIEF NATIONAL QUESTION."

(To the Editor). ' Sir,—-Again I must congratulate "Gracchus" upon contributing an interesting letter, but I cannot congratulate him upon it in so far as it is an answer to my letter. He entirely ignores the plea which I put forward for the consideration of Mount Holdsworth as a valuable town asset, and declares that "the chief national question" is, also, the chief local question. Then he asks: "Why is it the chief local question? because the residents of Masterton give to its ground a value almost as great as that of the property built on the ground, and that value, 1 instead of being used for the benefit of all, goes into a few pockets. Thus, the owners of these pockets reap the fruits of other people's labour, and give them nothing in return, which is, of course, theft, but which the law does not treat as theft." The reference is, of course, to what is called the unearned increment of land, and the opinion'expressed is that any man who is benefited by unearned increment is a thief. lam charitable eno> gh to suppose that "Gracchus" regards such a person as being only technically, not morally, guilty of theft. The view itself, [ however, is simply absurd, if I only on this ground—that it is.impossible to know what is unearned increment, because it is impossible to ascertain what is actual unimproved value. Will "Gracchus" state definitely how the unimproved value of land may be ascertained? He must be very careful in this respect, because, if his theory were adopted by the Government, and it were subsequently found to be incorrect, the result would be an enormous increase in our criminal population. I note that "Gracchus" cannot state definitely the period in English history "when there was little vagrancy, no work-houses, no poor-law system, and no need for it." He says that Professor Thorold Rogers is his authority, but I am afraid that he is endeavouring to make Professor Rogers' words fit in with "Gracchus' " views. Shade of Julius Caesar! I must confess that lam unaware that the "Dark Ages" were really such delightful periods in English history as "Gracchus" says they were. May I ask him what was the sanitary condition of London; two hundred years ago? Under what conditions did the working classes then live? And, coming to a much more I'ecent times, I should like him to explain why the memories of men like Shaftesbury, Plimaoll, Charles Dickens, and Charles Kingsley are held in such high estimation. During the last 150 years in the United Kingdom : has ' there been any improvement in the hospitals, gaols and lunatic asylums of the Old Country? It seems unnecessary to go back several centuries, for the state of the people in the "Dark Ages" was one of semibarbarism, and to compare their condition with that of ours to-day, and to attempt a comparison between them, is to try and compare things that are utterly unlike.- - Yours, etc., A WORKER. Masterton, March 13, 1907.