ANTI-POVERTY SOCIETY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2714, 3 December 1889, Page 3

ANTI-POVERTY SOCIETY.

TO THE EDITOK. Sin,—Your Cambridge reporter's reply to my remarks, as it appears in. Saturday's issue, is not very satisfactory. I would romind him that such expressions as "crazes," "lunatics," and "twaddles" are not arguments), and do not call for any response on my part. I have given my opinion, which I still hold, and am satisfied since they have appeared in your columns. I have yet to learn, however, that it pertains to a reporter's duties to enquiie into people's private motives, for attending at any meeting- If so, I do not wonder in the least that "a reporter's life is not a very happy one." Yet he presumes to publish with arithmetical exactness, the motives that led different individuals to attend the late Anti-poverty meeting at Cambridge ; and introduces this statement with all the solemnity of a sworn witness as '' the whole truth." If he took the trouble to enquire of each person his or her motive for attending, I can only nay that he far excels me in impertinence. If lie did not do so his remarks are presumptious in the extreme, and as the prime mover in calling the meeting, I can truly ssy that I urged no one to attend as an obligation to me. I am sorry that both in his report and letter he displays in much ignorance of the meaning of so simple a phrase as "Anti-Poverty." It seems quite a revelation to him that a society styling itself '• Anti-Poverty" should aim at "more prosperous conditions," and he complains that a certain spealcor did not dwell long enough on such a definition of plain Unglish. I would suggest that when reporting engagements he shouid supply himself with a dictionary. With regard to the amount of unimproved land in townships of the Waikato, ho says it is merely a drop in the ocean. I maintain that when two-thirds of the land in the township is unimproved and over-run with gorse and briars, as in a well-known case, I maintain that it is a very big "drop in the ocean." Our townships in this respcct aro only a fail-sample of the country as a whole, and that is a prey to speculators and land-sharks. The most important part of his letter is where iie asks, " Will the one tax cause the big estates now lying comparatively idle to be worked? If so let us have it by all means." He here touches upon the vital principle of our Society. I say most certainly it will do so, as is plain to all who fully understand the matter. We propose to lay a single-tax upon land-values apart from all improvement. This is no novelty. It was the English mode of taxing until the rtign of Charles 11, arid it is the only tax compatible with justice and with real prosperity. In the first place under such a tax no one would be able to liolj land unless lie made use of it, as the speculator's land would be taxed equally with the farmer's, as it should be in all justice, farmers, instead of haviug to pay n, fictitious speculative value for their land would bo able to invest the whole of their capital in implements and improvements. They would also not be forced to go beyond the palo of civilisation in order to get land on reasonable terms, and population being less scattered we should not hear so much of excessive freights, and difficulties of transit. Add to this the fact that the single-tax would discourage the over-crowd-ing and the consequent pauperism of largo towns, it may be seen that a more general prosjteiity would soon show itself. Thus free all improvements from taxation, make the land free to those who aro willing to use it, make the country prosperous, and there will be no lack of people to settle upon the land and prosper.—l am, etc. Anti-Poveiitt. Cambridge, 2i>th November, IStj!'.