The Waikato Argus [PUBLISHED DAILY.] A Guaranteed Circulation of over 8000 Weekly. SATURDAY, MAY 16, 1908.

Waikato Argus, Volume XXIV, Issue 3783, 16 May 1908, Page 2

The Waikato Argus [PUBLISHED DAILY.] A Guaranteed Circulation of over 8000 Weekly. SATURDAY, MAY 16, 1908.

There are so few situations so bad that a redeeming point cannot be found. This is the case with regard to the critical condition of the British hop industry. A recent cablegram informs us that the House of Lords has adopted a motion to the effect that the position deserves the Government’s immediate attention. The Earl of Carrington, President of the Board of Agriculture, admitted that the situation was very serious, but added that the Government, though deeply sympathising with the growers, was unable to entertain the proposal for a duty on foreign hops. The Archbishop of Canterbury has expressed himself as aghast at the condition of Kentish villages. The redeeming point is that it cannot fail to shake the confidence of the British people in the dogma that it is only under a free trade policy that the country can hold its own commercially. Almost unchecked importation of food products has led to a very large proportion of the grain-growing country of Great Britain being either allowed to go out of cultivation atlogethcr, or be sown in grass and devoted to pasture. This is the principal cause of the influx of population to the towns, and the consequent flooding of the labour market. Clearly the remedy for this state of affairs is to place a duty on the food products of foreign countries as suggested by Mr Chamberlain, and in return be accorded a reciprocal tariff by the possessions of the Empire. The duty imposed would not materially increase the cost of living. The impost on foreign grain would have a tendency to encourage farmers to again grow wheat crops, and thus check the flocking of population into the towns. The reciprocal tariff offered by the colonics would increase the demand for British goods, and, as a consequence, find increased employment for those already in the towns. A duty on hops sufficient Lo enable the home grower to hold his own would not add perceptibly to the price of the working I man's beer, but would prevent the ! beautiful hop fields of Kent running jto weeds. Beer might be a little i dearer, but this would be more than j counterbalanced by the increase in f employment.

| The eyes of the young men, the ' sons of our early settlers, arc turned towards Queensland. A Wairarapa papqr states that last week £IBO,OOO from the Hawkes Bay district and Wairarapa was remitted to that colony for investment in the Darling Downs. Considering that New Zealand is naturally the richest and most productive country embraced in British Australasia, and that the Dominion is not one sixteenth populated, this should not be the case. Every result has its cause, and that which is leading to the exodus from this country is not difficult to trace. Since the term “social pest” was first applied to landholders under any other tenure than lease from the Crown, the drift of all land legislation and land taxation has been in the direction of making the “social pests” bear a very large proportion of the taxation of the country. If there was danger of a deficiency in revenue the remedy suggested by Ministers has been to give the land tax screw another turn, each turn being an advance towards land nationalisation. That the screw would now te applied without mercy is evidenced by the fact that there is a land nationaliser in the Cabinet. The prinj ciples he advocates is to tax the land till it has no selling value. He is a | disciple of Henry George, and is not ! ashamed to say so, and his colleagues | do not appear to feel shame at being I so intimately associated with a man who has taken systematic robbery as : the text from which to preach his ■ political faith. Another cause to j which the exodus must be attributed | is the labour legislation which has | come into force within the last dcI cade. It has had the effect of inj creasing the costprice of almost everything the landowner i, ses, except the food which he produces himself from his land. In the past, when any man suggested that the land and fiscal policy of the party at present in power would cause the withdrawal of capital, he was sneered at by its leaders, whose supporters have followed agilely in their wake. There is no disguising the fact that large sums of money are leaving this country for investment in Queensland, and what is perhaps worse, some of the flower of our youth is accompanying it. It is certain tha - ; no man will stop in a country to be squeezed by legislation if he can find a country in which there is no machine adapted to the purpose.