LAND NATIONALISATION.

Waikato Times, Volume XL, Issue 3210, 21 January 1893, Page 3

LAND NATIONALISATION.

Mb G. Hdtoihsox, the member for Waitotara, in a speech recently delivered to his constituents, in dealing with the question of land nationalisation, has this to say on the subject!— The policy of land nationalisation concerns not only those who believe in freeholds, but those also who see no danger of a powerful body of tenants of the State, for it la becoming evident that the terms of a fixed percentage to all time is, in so far a 9 it is not an obvious deception, a public fraud. It is said by those who seek to justify this lease in perpetuity that as the unearned increment is sacrificed by the State when it sells land, the State should not seek when it leases land to retain that advantage. The fallacy of this contention is that the State, if it gets the capital value, gets the unearned increment, just as an owner of land or merchandize by getting the market value for what he has to sell gets thereby the means in another form of earning in seine other way the same advantage as if his investment remained in its original form, That the State may not invest the proceeds in other property is no answer, although as a matter of fact it often does so in this colony in the case of buying native lands and engaging in public works. But this policy of land nationalisation concerns also tlios? who may be leaseholders. In reply to the objection that the benefit of the, unearned increment—the additional value which _ the growth of settlement and the expenditure of public money eive to land-rshould be reserved to the State, th" answer of the Government was that the lands leased in perpetuity would be reached, as they grow valuable, by taxation, This is where the danger to all holders of land lies —most of all to those who have purchased, or may yet purchase, but none the less surely in degree does it threaten those also who hold under other tenures. Land Nationalism as they are'becoming stronger are becoming bolder. It was their cue at one time to urge that the State should resume the freehold, buying out the proprietors and operations for the present must necessarily take that form. The Premier has published a pamphlet, in which he propounded such a theory. But that idea may be said to be as good as exploded, if only bj reason of the growing magnitude of the amount required. The recent valuation gives the value of land privately owned in the colony at £122,250,000, or three times the amount of our national daht. Tims, the folly of professions as to paying compensation has become so plain that land nationalises now claim that the State should abolish all-private property in land by the simple process of taxing the land-values. In other words, all holders of land would in time under the rale of land nationalisation, as now generally understood, bi) taxed on the same basis whether they are owners or lessees. The tax would necessarily bp just such percentage as would be required for tho needs of the Government. In this way there would cease to be any distinction in land tenures, but in the process private ownership would have disappeared, while holders under the lease in perpetuity would pay an uncertain rent—it might be less than 4 per cent., but it might be more, The present tax does not reach them, but if they only consider that the excuse of the Government for depriving the State of the unearned increment is that their lands will be made to pay an equivalent in taxation, they will begin to realise what land national'sation is.