The Wairarapa Daily TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1889 A SINGLE TAX.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume X, Issue 3347, 29 October 1889, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1889 A SINGLE TAX.

Henry Geokou, the author of " Progress and Poverty," is about to visit Austriilia, and to imiounlute the radicals of 8011 th Australia, Victoria, and New South Wales, with his peculiar tenets. The leading one is, perhaps, his single lax nostrum, and ibis has already met with acceptance in several of the Australian colonies, and is regarded as a coining cure-all.

Democracy has not, perhaps, had a good time lately, and its adherents will welcome with enthusiasm one who, like Henry George, is erabued with hot and strong revolutionary sentiments. His opinion is that the cost of all federal, state, county, and municipal governments should le paid out of land, .uid that this impost should be based on land values irrespective of improvements, All other taxes should be abolished, and this source of wealth should alone he tipped, As an abstract theory Henry George's idea is a famous one, the main difficulty in a colony likeNew Zealand would be in its application. Possibly a tax of five shillings an acre might provide for all general, count* and municipal Governments in the colony if such an amount could be levied on all occupied tenures, But if any such levy were imposed the immediate result would be to throw three fourths of settled lauds iu the colony out of i occupation, and make them useless for the purpose of raising revenue undor a single tax, The result would undoubtedly be poverty without progress. However, Henry George is said to be a powerful speaker, and as such he will be dear to Radicals wherever he goes. Kadicals as a rule are not land owners, and they will for that reason be quite prepared to pile'all taxations on to the soil. Why Radicals should not be land owners we do not know, but tbey apparently do not care to undertake the labor and drudgery' involved iu arresting a living from tile soil, To them Henry George might appear almoft a Saviour I He could promise them tobacco for a shilling a pound, and grog for two shillings a bottle. When once Custom duties were abolished the ecstatic vision of obtain ing these requisites at nominal prices w.Q.uld make our New Zealand radicals firm believers iu the single tax theory. Ihe apustln of tfre single tax is perhaps uiiab'e to convince liis own fellow countrymen in the States of his political sagacity, and he consequently travels from country to country to obtain t|iitt reputation as a prophet which is apparently denied to him amongst Ins own people, As' yet be hag failed to convince any 'State, whether lavße or small, of the beneficial nature of a single tax. We wish some community, other than our own, would try it, because wild theories, like those which Henry George propagates.areonly properly exploded when they are submitted to some 'practical, test, Of course too many taxes are almost as jtbprd as a single lax, and, indirectly, Henry George) when he comes amongst us, may do good by reminding us that there is a happy medium whjch we have not yet reached and whjch avoid ? the single tax " Soylla," and tlge undue multi plation of taxes which constitute our ''Obarybdis.''