Land, A Monopoly.

Land is a monopoly, and it will always remain a monopoly. I, however, believe that the land should belong to the State, and not to individuals,—(Applause) The only reason why land is given to an individual is that it may be made most productive; and it is contended by Mill and various other writers that taxes may be specially put on it. We may get at its value now, and if it is found at the end of 10 or 20 years that a man's land has increased in value, this tax is put on in order to get (Mill says) some portion—not all—of that unearned increase in the value of the land which is continually going on all over the world. I say, therefore, that a land tax is a fair and equitable tax compared with a property tax, I ask you to remember what has been done by the present Ministry in reference to the property tax. Unless the property tax produces something, the whole burdens of the country are cast on the customs revenue, while the property tax produces a miserable pittance. While the Treasurer says that the Colony is worth many millions, the sum paid annually into the Treasury under the property tax amounts to £156,000. That is the great good which has been done under the present Government in taxing the propertied classes, who, owning hundreds of millions' worth of property within the Colony, are only asked to pay £156,000 a year into the State Treasury. But the radical distinction between a land and a property tax hangs upon