THE LAND TAX.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2598, 7 March 1889, Page 3

THE LAND TAX.

TO THE EDITOR. Sin, —Those who are in favour of a Land Tax argue in this way. They say, "tax the bit; companies, such as the Patetere Land Company, and by doing so you will raise taxes to carry on the Government of the countrv." By money being raised in this manner all the others, themselves included, will be freed from taxation, the rights or ways of the case n°ed not be inquired into, for' whatever is right or supposed right for one's pocket, that is right here in New Zealand. I will show that the Land Tax will not free those who are not large landholders, but on the contrary, I will show that a Land Tax to compel the big men to sell will add to their, the small men's, taxation. Then as a matter of course if I show so, the Land Tax will be in their eyes an iniquity. At present the owners of big estates such as Patetere are giving work to many hands. To tax them so as to compel them to sell is nothing else than letting them—the big estates —fall into the bands of the Government without the owners receiving one farthing as purchase money. The owners would simply bo compelled to give them up. The tax to compel them to sell would be such as to force them to give the estates up for nothing. The owners are now paying Property-tax ; if they gave up the land there would not be this Property tax paid, and the deficiency would need to be made up by all of us. Then again the men now employed being thrown out of work would add still more to our taxation. It will be said, ha ! a gnod thing if the laud falls into the hands of the Government; it will enable small men to make homes for themselves, and will enrich the country, and by selling the land the Government will receive money. I say that though the Government tomorrow owned Patetere, and that they sold it to small people, instead of receiving money they would bo out of pocket. The cost of surveying land into small blocks costs more than what is received for it. The cost never ceases ; in a few years the old marks are gone, and if an intending purchaser is going to buy land it has to be surveyed anew, It is all fudge talking about selling and giving land to small men, there are none such wanting land. I have seen many small men giving up their homesteads in disgust, and look with disdain upon the trials and self-denial requisite to succeed in establishing a home upon small or no beginnings. A man must be adapted to this sort of thing to be successful, and therein lies the failure of all such settlements as village settlements. There were no village settlements in the west of America; there a man who knew what was before him, without help of any kind from the Government, went into the wilderness, and made a home for himself. He was adapted to it, and if one has not by the bumps of his head, this adaptability, all the bolstering in the world will not manufacture him into one that will succeed. Let the Government have Patetere for nothing, give it to small men and help them on. What will bo the results : Both the men and the country will be the poorer; the men by spending some of their best years of their lives, and the country by spending a lot of money. If you go against Nature wrong will follow, and it is going against Nature to start a manufactory of farmers. You cannot manufacture the adaptability of patience and perseverance and denial. — Yours truly, Jlahapipi. Harapipi, 27th February, ISSS.