A Few Words to Single Taxers.

We are quite conscious that the foregoing proposal may come as a great shock to many of our friends. It is undoubtedly a departure, of a very marked character, front our former plan of bringing the Single Tax into operation. We ask you, therefore, to weigh carefully the reasons which have led us to take it. In doing so you will see page 20 that it is a change in method only, and that we do not propose any alteration in the great principle which all Single Taxers wish to introduce, of taking ground-rent for public purposes. At the same time, we do not wish to minimise either the significance or the importance of the change. It amounts to no less than the buying out of the existing interests of all who are now receiving ground-rent, or enjoying its equivalent in special facilities, instead of gradually taking it back by progressive taxation.

Hitherto no feasible alternative to this plan has been suggested Our opponents have, it is true, demanded that landowners must be first bought out. But to do this by borrowing a sufficient sum of money was clearly impossible. The people would never take upon themselves the responsibility; and, even if they did, such a loan could not be obtained. This difficulty left us no alternative but to advocate the introduction of the Single Tax gradually and without compensation. Such a time-extension of the privilege of receiving or enjoying ground-rent was an inevitable concession of principle to policy. Our present plan is of the same nature, but political events have moved rapidly of late, and these seem to present a new opening for a plan that avoids many objections which could be urged against the old method.

It is due to you, as fellow-believers and workers, that we should explain the reasons that have influenced us. Whether we approve or not, we must face the fact that Parliament has definitely decided upon buying up the interests of some landowners, and that it has made great advances in putting it into actual practice. In addition to the Cheviot estate of 84,755 acres, at a cost of £260,220, we bought 1,027 acres in 1892-3, and within the past year another area of 9,113 acres, for £39,117; while Parliament has just sanctioned the borrowing of £250,000 for further purchases. In regard to the last-named sum, the words used by the Minister of Lands during the debate are very significant. He is reported to have said that "an engagement had already been entered into for the greater part of that sum." amendment to reduce the amount was negatived by forty-six votes to sixteen.

Now, whatever our former contentions might be worth as regards resuming the legal lights of owners generally, it is quite evident, from the foregoing facts, that they have obtained but little favour. But if we still continue to urge them in connection with rights so recently obtained, as are those of the purchasers and lessees of these re-purchased lands, we should be still more out of court. Indeed, to do so would be asking more than many of us would consider right. For this fact must be borne in mind: that these recent transactions have not been entered into by a Parliament largely composed of landowner enjoying plural votes in virtue of holding landed property. Last Parliament was elected on a "one man one vote" franchise, and the page 21 present one by "one man and one woman one vote each," and it is these which have approved and carried out the new policy,

The adoption of this course by Parliament forms a very real harrier against the acceptance of the Single Tax reform. It must delay its commencement, and would retard its progress whenever it might be commenced. It has added to the dead-weight resisting power of monopoly and roughened the road by which alone true and permanent reform could proceed.

We are also met on all sides, and in other countries, by proposals to apply correctives and palliatives to the troubles that exist. Agricultural banks, the multiplication of small holdings, co-operative settlement, co-operative works, profit sharing, old-age pensions, tenement dwellings, and cheap money to farmers, are some of these. Such devices may help a few people for a few years, but, to the extent that they are effective, they will only add to the collective power of the people to pay ground-rent to landowners. So long as rent is a private perquisite we must continue to levy taxes and rates to maintain public services. So long, also, will owners, and the newspapers they can influence, support such schemes, and do anything and everything but "get off our backs."

What Single Taxers have to decide, therefore, is not whether they approve what is being done, but whether they are prepared to quietly see their more beneficent—and larger—reform postponed by its means. The alternative is, by varying their method, to endeavour to take the tide of existing opinion at the flood, and, by diverting it into a broader channel, aim at achieving a more speedy victory than is possible by persevering in the old method.

We have decided that it is true statesmanship to adopt a new course. One result of doing so will be disputed by no one, and that is that we shall remove the objection, which so many feel, that the I killing of selling value by taxation would be an immoral and, therefore a disastrous action. This will greatly strengthen our hands.

But there is another consideration, more important because it Involves a question of principle, which confirms us in this resolve. It is this: that not only has Parliament adopted a method inferior to ours in its nature and extent, but one that fails to conserve the true rights of the community. Its action assumes that the mere extension of settlement is the important end, and neglects the fundamental necessity of making equitable settlement conditions. This assumption reaches only half of the problem: that half which is more obvious on the surface as a present necessity. So far we agree with this policy, but must point out that it does not achieve, or even aim at achieving, I the further and—if we would arrive at a permanent solution—absolutely necessary reform of taking ground-rent from private hands and placing it at the disposal of the public. On the contrary, as we have shown, the present method strengthens the hold of individuals upon this vast page 22 and ever-increasing fund by replacing single owners by many, and, therefore, adds very largely to the voting power which will maintain the old abuse.

For what are the facts? Take the action with regard to to Cheviot estate as a fair sample of the rest, It contained 84,755 acres, and belonged to one man. Of this amount 6.498 acres have been sold for cash, and 25,379 acres have been let on lease for 999 years at 4 per cent, upon the present value, with no provision for re-valuation. In addition to these two classes, who have acquired the right to all future increase in ground-rent value, another area of 46,439 acres has been let on twenty-one years' lease, with no revaluation till the end of that term. It is clear that these new owners and lessees will have a mow direct appeal in supporting their claims to the right than former ones have, because it has been granted to them so recently by the Legislature. Their votes will of course be cast in the direction of upholding private rights to ground-rent. We need only quote a sentence from the Surveyor-General's last report to show what this voting power already is, and to give some idea of what it may grow to. He says: "The population in 1891 was about eighty-three, and at the present time is about 650, including unemployed engaged in road works."

Now, we are not alarmed, but delighted, to see efforts being made to extend settlement upon the land. Neither do we wish to add fa the hardships of users, but quite the reverse. All that we contend for is that the just interests of the whole community must be considered We say that the transfer of ground-rent from the one owner of Cheviot to any number of owners or "eternal" leaseholders only serves to continue the evil, and to entrench it more strongly. It does not nationalise its ground-rent, but merely increases the number of these who hold it. It entitles the new holders to the same privilege enjoyed by the old ones, of retaining all increase of value that may arise from public expenditure and from the increase of population. When we look to the advance of older countries, it does not require a prophet to predict that some parts of this estate may become the sites of towns and cities, and that single acres of it may thus become as valuable as the whole estate is now—viz., over a quarter of a million pounds.

We can see, then, that the public feeling is so strong in favour of more extended settlement, that Parliament is prepared to borrow money to humour this wish by buying back private estates. That, moreover, it is so anxious to do this that it is prepared to push on without much reflection as to whether it is disposing of the land again on sound principles. But we are confident, nevertheless, that the general desire of the people is in accord with ours, and that is to do so without granting, if it can be avoided, any privileges to the net holders. In spite of this desire of the people, we assert that their representatives are, in ignorance or carelessness of the ultimate effect of their actions, la ing again the foundations of the private monopoly of ground-rent, and even making them stronger than ever.

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We are in accord, then, with the desire of the people on the two principal points of extended settlement and the destination of monopoly. The important point we seek to convince them of is that both of these can be secured. We have always contended that they can. In the past our proposal has been to levy a tax on ground-rent, and to steadily increase this until it is all taken. The first object has been to destroy land speculation and to abolish landlordism, by making both unprofitable. The second has been to remove all taxes and rates from every form of industry, and to take ground-rent, which is the creation of the community, for purposes which are for the benefit of the whole community. Our wish is, not simply to change the incidence of taxation, but to destroy that system entirely. We deny that the payment of ground-rent is a tax at all, because it is not a deduction from individual earnings. The people, generally, however, have not taken our view of the matter, but have decided to buy back certain private estates for the mere purpose of settling more people upon those particular areas.

What is the wise course for Single Taxers to adopt in these circumstances? Shall we, because we cannot see the whole of our programme adopted, stand by and see the first step towards the great reform postponed, and, worse still, made more difficult of attainment We say, Decidedly not. We see the people generally wishing to buy up estates. Let us advise them to buy up ground-rent instead, and I never to part with it again. The people are applying their method to small and scattered parcels of country land only. Let us advise them to adopt a plan that will release locked-up and partially-used land in the towns also, and that will extend its operation over the whole Colony Parliament is borrowing money from England to carry out its scheme. Let us show the people that our reform can be completed without going into debt, and by a purely colonial operation. Let us recommend them to operate through a public department, and not through party leaders.

The larger scope that our measure would afford cannot be doubted, but its very, magnitude may frighten the timid. We cannot wonder if those who have not studied the Single Tax system have less faith than we possess in the many advantages it would confer on the population generally. Owing to the want of this study, they may think the task of ultimately redeeming the debentures would entirely overtax the strength of the Colony's finances. But we need have no such fear, because we can see that the freeing of land-users from the alternative necessities of either paying a premium to become owners, or else working insecurely as tenants, will immensely increase the beneficial use of all land, and will thus lead to a vast and progressively-increasing growth of the ground-rent fund. In the past this growth has gone to the owners, and has produced an increasingly-wealthy class. In the future it would be retained by the whole community, and form an increasing yearly surplus over and above the interest on debentures. To the extent that this expectation was realised, we might expect an page 24 increased immigration of people, who would further add to ground-rent, and help us to clear off our present debt and entirely remit all taxes and rates.