THE CHIEF NATIONAL QUESTION.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8382, 16 March 1907, Page 7

THE CHIEF NATIONAL QUESTION.

(To the Editor). Sir,—The case we are trying is:— The Landless People v. The Landholders. "A Worker" is a witness in this case. lam counsel for the landless people; or, at all events, let it be assumed for the purposes of this controversy that I am acting in that capacity. My first duty is to advise the witness to be very careful what he says, for I am inclined to think that he is not very particular *hathe says. He has told us that **it is impossible to know what is unA earned increment, because it is imi(f possible to ascertain what is actual unimproved value." This is, indeed, an extraordinary statement. I have not used the term "unearned increment," for there is no such thing. The value of these natural objects, which we see around us, and which we call "land," is, of course, made "by somebody, it is earned by somebody, and the question is—by whom? Let us suppose that the landless people of thi« colony shipped off to America or some other part of the world, and the landholders were left here alone, what "unearned increment," as the witness calls it, would there' be? I must press for an answer to this question, for it is one of .vital importance to my clients. I •Kemand to know from him whether land would have any unimproved . value whatever. There must be no shirking of this question. The witness must be extremely careful what he says, for I have very important witnesses to call on this most important point. We are investigating a matter which is of vast consequence to the men and women and children who toil hard and long for a bare living, and they have a claim upon me as their advocata that I shall not flinch from probing this matter to the bottom, and endeavour to obtain for them the strictest justice. %)ur law courts are founded in order that strict justice shall be done between man and man. If I were arraigned before a court of justice on the charge of having appropriated to myself so little as sixpennyworth of wealth belonging to another man, and it were proved that I had done so, I would be convicted, and rightly convicted, of theft. In the name of justice I demand to know whether the unimproved value of land which the witness calls "unearned increment"—a very misleading term—is not made and earned by the hard toil of the men ' j and women and children who work f for their living, and who now only "receive the smallest fraction of that value. The witness'says that "it is impossible to ascertain what is actual unimproved value." Then, how do Government officers ascertain it and levy rates a»d taxes upon it? They either do ascertain it or they merely guess at it. Which is • it? The Court must decide this matter according to the evidence. I shall have important witnesses to call upon the matter. In regard to the Dark Ages witnesses will be produced all in good time as to the earnings of labour in those Ages. do not want to know anything about Mount Holdsworth, or about improvements in hospitals, goals, and lunatic asylumns in the Old Country, nor any other irrelevant matters. The witness wanders from the point so much, and is so irrelevant that I must warn him not to attempt any more of these tricks. He must not trifle with the court.— I am, etc., GRACCHUS.