FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8504, 9 August 1907, Page 5

FREE LAND AND FREE TRADE.

ADDRESS BY MR E. T. EVANS. Mr E. T. Evans addressed a large audience at the Post Office corner, last evening, in support of, the policy of the National League for the taxation of land values. In the course of his address Mr Evans spoke of the great movement which was now going on iii all the great countries of the world for uplifting the material, moral and intellectual position of the masses. In New Zealand, he said, there had been, in existence for some years an organisation whose avowed policy was to establish free trade and raise the revenue of the country by, a tax on land values, which would practically make the land free,, thus giving the whole of the people access to it. Man was a land animal; he could not live without land. Therefore to divorce him from the soil was to cut. him off from a free and independent life and virtually make him the slave of those who possessed land. There - were many people in the colony who held thousands of acres of land, while most of the workers in the cities and towns had not so much as half an acre each. Moreover, all the landless toilers were compelled to give value to the land. That value in the colony now amounted to about £5,000,000 per annum. It was called by some unearned increment, which was a very gross untruth because the increment in the value of land was earned by the hard toil of the labourers. But it went into the pockets of those who did nothing whatever to earn it. The landlords appropriated it and gave the workers nothing in return, which was a breach of the commandment, which said, "Thou, shalt not steal." On the top of this, continued Mr Evans, the people of the colony paid into the Customs more than two and a-half million pounds last year in duties on labour products. When the cost of collection and merchants' profits were added to this sum, it came to nearly £4,000,000. All this money was paid for the protection of local industries, engaging a comparatively few people. Free trade, it was said,, would destroy these local industries. Nothing could be more absurd. Free trade and taxation of land values would extend every one of the industries. In the days of protection in England all the "predictions of the protectionists in regard to free trade were falsified, and so it would be in New Zealand. They might expect that after all these heavy duties on imported goods, wages in the protected industries would be very good but as a matter of fact, wages in some , if not in most of them, were lower than in free trade England, when the difference in the cost of living was taken into account. In conclusion, he moved "that this meeting protests against the imposition of duties on products of labour, and demands that the. national revenue be raised by a tax on land values." Mr J. Blake seconded the resolution, which was declared carried unanimously. Mr E. T. Evans delivered an address on similar lines at Carterton cn Wednesday evening last. After the address a resolution was adopted demanding the abolition of the Custorrs duties.