SINGLE-TAX.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 2865, 22 November 1890, Page 2

SINGLE-TAX.

TO TBR BDfZOII. 8111,—Mr Parr, in his letter on the above subject, by his courteous and temperate language, shows a good example to the writers of certain anonymous letters which have recently appeared in your paper. Some of these letters resemble your last leader about Sir George Grey. I sympathise with much which Mr Parr says, but he fails to show (irstly, how farmers will be benefitted by putting all taxation on land and relieving every other thing from taxes, including exemption to money lenders, present and absentee, who scarcely merit such exceptional favour; secondly, why persons who have honestly bought and paid for land should be punished by confiscation as criminals, while those who invested their money on mortgages and in shares, or who by usury or sweating establishments, "grind thu faces uf the poor, should pay no taxation and be treated as if they were public beuefactors. In my last letter I showed how, eveu by confiscating the laud, tho revenue from such wholesalo plunder would not meet the debt charges and tho cost of government at much less than the present _ scale of expenditure. And if the land is to be paid for at its uuiimrovcd value, thai a large increase of oxistiug ■ taxation would bo requisite. Whenca would that additional taxation come'.' If tho ownom of laud aro to ba paid for its "nalmal value," by state bonds and bo taxed to pay tho intermit, thorium, besides bein/j taxed to pay tha whole cost of government arid the charges* on the public debt, New Zealand will ba regarded as a very desirable place for Bottlers to emigrate from. I could corroborate what Mr Parr says; about Napier land doings by a considerable amount of interesting information, but it opens too wido a subject-far, your space aud my ties. 1 am, etc., Wm. Arch. Mmibay.