BE JUST TO THE LAND SHARKS AND DO NOT ROB THEM.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 2884, 8 January 1891, Page 3

BE JUST TO THE LAND SHARKS AND DO NOT ROB THEM.

TO THE RDITOK. SiK,—l had resolved to write no more letters, as I am Retting sick and weary of doing so. But as there is a possibility of Mrßallance and his party petting into power, my conscience will not allow me to sit quietly and eco spoilition, more especially as that spoiling policy is a policy which will be ruin to the poor man. Mr Editor, some time ago I read an article in Chamber's Journal headed "Gentlemen Farmers in Canada." That article showed that the gentlemen who wont to Canada to farm gradually got poorer while his poorer neighbours gradually got richer. I myself have been in the backwoods of America, and what I there saw convinced me that there could be no profit in buying land and paying labour to improve it. No doubt there would be a profit to the country in this way that the working mau who received the wages; it cuablcd him to buy a section, and after he had bought it, it enabled him to carry on aud make a home for himself. But Mr Editor, that is not business ; to be business it should have paid both parties. Mr Editor, from first to last my whole sympathy has been with the unfortunate owners of land such as the owners of Piako swamps and Patatere hill and dale and at the time when Sir George Grey was denouncing the owners of the Piako swamp as robbers, I, in TIIK Waikato Timeh, did my utmost to show that the giving of the Piako swamp for a half-a-crown an acre was not robbery. No doubt men were robbed by it, but it ■was not the poor man, it was rather the reverse. Mr Editor, there ia no good in rakiDg up the past, because what is done cannot be undone, but we cannot avoid speaking of the past, because the past and the future are mixed up ; mixedupin this way, that the roguish political cries of the past are, if Mr Ballance gets power, going to be the political cries of the future, and if the ideas in these cries are carried out, it will be mination all round. "What are these cries ? They are placing poor people on the land by village settlement, and confiscating the ownership of large blocks of land held over for the profits of the increment. I will take the first of these ideas, that is placing poor people on land by assisting them upon the lines laid down upon the village settlement scheme. Mr Editor, when this acherne was first proposed, it was eaid that it would pay the country, because it would translate people in the towns who were idle, and who bad to be supported by the Government, creating work ior the unemployed. It was said that village settlers, instead of having Government support that they would add to the wealth of the country by they themselves becoming self-supporting. I, at that time, wrote in The Waikato Times that the cheapest and fhe least cost to the country would be for the Government not to create work, nor start them as village aettlere, but for the Government to give these idle men so much per week for nothing till onre times got butter. I 3r.iJ that the cost of troatipg them as Tviuucrs would not be one-teath what it

I would cost tu make village settlers of them. It will perhaps be snid that mak ing paupers of men is demoralising; in i contradiction to this, will it be said that takiug Tom, Dick and Harry from the towmTaml planing them on land and as long as you pay them to stay on it, and when that ceases they hook it, will it be said that this iu enobling these men ? I think thnt policy is as demoralising as making them panders. The only diflfe mice ia in not calling a spade a spade. There are only one class of men of small means succeeding in making a home for themselves out of the wilderness. 'I'hese aiv men who know what is before them, and who in themselves have the qualifi cations to make such homes. These qualifications an; the knowing what is before them, and tho self-reliance to perform and indulge what is before them. Let. these men avoid debt ; let them be fmcal, and their success before a great many years is sure and certain. Lot the others, the tailors and weavers of the towns let them be assisted by the State and their end will be failure. It is not; in them, and all tho pampering which the State can give will only be money thrown away. I will now come to the second point of Mr Ballance's policy : That is, that a Land-tax should be put on instead of tho present Property-tax. First let me say that the Property-tax is a Land tax and that by the Property-tax laud ia taxed, and also let me say that a Land tax is not a Property-tax. The Property-tax taxed Mr Lennox's coach and his horses ; the Land-tax would let these go clear. The Property-tax- also taxes the insurance and bank shares (if he has such) which Mr Lennox owns ; the Land-tax Iwould let him eo clear of these taxes. But Mr Lennox may say, tax my income, but the very fact of Mr Lennox wanting an In-come-tax in preference to a Prnperty-tax is a reason to suppose that under an Income-tax he would have to pay less than under the Property-tax. Now we must not be guided by what Mr Lennox or any other Ar-ckland man may arnue for what taxation would personally suit them best. We must be guided by the broad principles of what is just, and there is no doubt whatever that a Property-tax, which includes all wealth no matter of what description, is the fairest and most just of all taxation. I will now leave the Auckland members and come to Mr Ballance. Mr Ballauce will be for taxing the large land owners. This taxation means confiscation ; it means simply and purely that it would be better for the owner of these large lauded unimproved estates to be ijnit of thiss land and get quit of it at a price whi'ih would be nil; it means that these large owners would be glad to give their land to the Government for nothing, but it also means that they would be glad to give the Government something to take the land off their handn. Now I want to know a reasou how shesc men, who are holding land and doing nothing with it are to have their land confiscated and their land takeu from them and be given to the Government. No expediency can justifiy robbery ; no sophistry can excuse plunder. The ownership of property, and the protection of the right of ownership is the foundation of what civilisation rests upon. Do away with these rights and we will go back to tho time of the ancient Britons ; do a way with the rights of property aud we would soon be on a par with this Australian aborigines. It will be said that the owners of land wiio are holding it for the increment are robbers, and that they are witholding it from the people. It will be said the land belongs to the people aiid that these owners of land have diddled the people out of their rights, and by holding the land they havo kept others (small men) out of it. I deny that these men havekp.pt small men from gutting land. On the contrary, they have been the means of small men becoming owners of land. Did Mr Williamson, when he bought the Ohanpo and Hamilton swamp, do anyone out of land? On the contrary, he increased the number of owners of land. Has the Patntcre Company done anyone out of land'.' I jjuess not. It will be said that we are not speaking of the present, but of the future. In the future there will bu no large estates: the large estates will, by natural laws, get into small estates. All these large pptates nxe, at present, paying Propertytax. If they had not been taken up, aud takeu up in the hope of getting the increment, they would now be iu the hands of the Government, and the country would be getting no Propertytax from them. The paying of the Preperty-tax ia a substantial benefit to the country. The supposed evil—that is, that these large owners have kept small men oil' tho land—is delusive. Ignorant men say, tax these owners of land and the taxes of such would let us clear of all other taxation. How on earth can thai be? Put taxation to a certain extent and you will make these lands worth uothing to their owners. How can what is worth nothing pay the taxes of the country? Suppose these lands were to fall into the hands of the Government, the Government would not be a penny the richer, because it takes the whole amount or the price received to pay for surveying and other expenses. Do away with the large estates and the Government will be the poorer, because it would not huvu the Property-tax from them. 1 say, instead of robbing these owners of their land, let us foster them, so as to get otliers to do as they have done; the morn of them the better it will be for the country.—Yours truly, Habai-epe. Harapepe, 24th Dec, IS9O.