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The Land Tax.

To criticise an editor in his own newspaper is a rather delicate business. When the writer has no time to enter fully into the subject, his sentences are short and abrupt, and apt to seem offensive. I think, however, that your discrimination may fairly be counted on. In a late leading article, you write as follows:—"We do not hold that all large purchasers are speculators, but we do argue that it would be better for the country that 10,000 acres of land should be occupied by say fifty families than be held in the hands of one man to be occupied for grazing purposes only. In regard to taxation, we argue that the owners of large speculative purchases, or unimproved estates, have a right to bear an acreage pro rata rate of taxation equivalent to what the Government would receive were it occupied by moderate-sized holdings, page 55 and consequent increased population, and from increased value per acre by reason of cultivation. Large properties, equally with small ones, receive an increased value per acre by reason of the expenditure of borrowed money on public works, and ought therefore to bear an equal share of the increased burden of taxation incident on the construction of those works. Let Pathfinder say why they should not."

I deem it my duty to offer these considerations, as the position you take up seems to me quite erroneous.

1.—The reason given above is likely to fail, because it is by no means certain that railways on borrowed money will permanently raise the value of land. With a mania on the popular mind everything from a tulip to a railway appears valuable; but before concluding it might be best to wait a little and see. Besides admitting that there must be heavy taxation of some kind, I do not see how the owners of pastoral land are to escape more than others. I am aware that the natural course of things in every civilised country tends to raise the value of land, and that this rise may take place without the efforts of the owner, and that it has been proposed and held fair by some to tax this natural movement (though there would probably be much difficuly in enforcing page 56 such a tax); but the present expenditure on doubtful public works is not the natural course of things, and when it ceases property will return to its former value.

2.—The tax would be very unequal and inequitable. One acre of land differs greatly in value from another. Some lands contain minerals, which may require a railway to develope them; and others are broken and mountainous, and don't require one. From these causes any taxation so applied would be of an intolerably crude and rough description. In the present case it would be specially inequitable, because the large land-owners and all generally who had any considerable stake in the country consistently opposed and succeeded in modifying .the present "policy."

3.—As you are aware, many and long have been the discussions about large and small farms, their benefits or otherwise. Their purely economical causes are of course easily understood, but I believe people still differ as to their moral and social powers. You are of opinion that 200 acres generally is large enough for a farm, and further that it should be devoted to agriculture. From your opinion here I decidedly differ. Before all the cultivable land in New Zealand even now bought shall be improved, we must have towns to suit and markets both inside and page 57 outside the country. To tax anyone because these are non-existent, and farming a non-paying thing, would be an extraordinary policy. Fifty families on 10,000 acres would no doubt be likely to pay in indirect taxes more than one family; and why? Mainly owing to the market price of their corn and cattle. If cultivation extends unnaturally, viz., driven by a violent law, prices must fall, and the purchasing power of the fifty families over dutiable commodities will be spread over perhaps 100, to the detriment or ruin of all. The small farmer and large pastoral land-owner have similar interests. Why should the former court the competition of the latter? Why should the Government seek to deteriorate the style of living of the farmers, by compelling others to compete with them or be taxed? If we don't want large farms we should not sell large farms, and if we are not to sell large farms we must keep out of debt.

4.—But probably such a tax would be found to delay the day of these 200-acre farms. For by robbing and impoverishing the land-owner, he might have no capital remaining to make them when their making would be economically possible.

5.—It might be asked, should not bought and unoccupied lands be taxed? Even here I would pause before doing so. Their owner has bought page 58 them, and the Government has got the money for public works. Meanwhile, the neighbours fatten gratis on him. He is more to be pitied than taxed. It should not be forgotten that freedom in industry is everything, and that by compelling the worker to divert his attention from most probably a better paying to a less paying labour, we weaken him and consequently the state he is a member of. His object in not occupying the land for a time may, for ought we know, be to occupy it the better when he thinks the proper time comes.

6.—There are other reasons, no doubt—and very good ones—in bar of the taxes you propose, which a less rusty pen than mine might divulge. It may be denounced as a tax on capital, and not nearly so just as even one on rent. An export duty on wool, and an increased one on gold, would be better than either, and will probably have to be resorted to. Again, town lands on the same principle should be taxed if not built upon. If the empty country is to be filled by law, so may the empty town be filled by law.

7.—I come, in conclusion, to observe that to impose such a tax would be a most impolitic step to take in the interests of all the country settlers. A moment's reflection will teach us that the people of New Zealand will shortly be called upon by the civil page 59 magistrate to pay an annual sum per head greater than any age or nation has ever known. These railways even their promoters now admit will not pay. Mr. Vogel the other day at Christchurch scouted the idea of the question "Will they pay?" ever being asked at them. A railway was only a modern equipped road, and being modern we must have them—no matter how little soever we have to carry on them—no matter, I suppose, though we have not a sixpence to pay for them. The spirit and temper of the times demand them, and so forth. Balderdash like this will get more common as the day of reckoning draws near. A back door of the meanest description will be then an article of the first necessity.

Now this sum can only be raised by additional taxation, or through the disposal of the waste lands Much may be said against adding to the present terrific taxation. Debt, taxation, demoralisation and disaster "gang thegither." Human nature is weak, and heavy taxation means perjury, false declarations and lies. Yet to sell the lands wholesale would be liable to still greater objections. When the lands are gone immigration is gone, and the colony goes down. It was also distinctly maintained from the first that the public creditor should look to the consolidated revenue for payment, and to that alone. There are chiefly three interests in New Zealand—the mining, page 60 the commercial or the towns, and the country or the land-owners. Should one of these allow itself to be disunited, it is manifest that the others may the more easily clap an unfair amount of public burden on it. I do not know which is the strongest, but that unity is strength and self-protection is certain. Still if the landed property of England can hold its own against the swarm of mines, manufactures, money, and commerce, surely this Colony if true to itself may hold a still stronger position. If, however, one division of it is arrayed against the other for the purpose of imposing the tax alluded to, a tax as oppressive as it is Eastern, the whole body will find themselves mistaken. The taxation which only reached the pastoral farmer of 200 acres and upwards, will soon find its way downwards when other interests ask the reason of the exclusion, and deem it, as it is their interest to deem it, unsatisfactory. I will conclude, therefore, for unity and against the Land Tax.

1873