THE LAND QUESTION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2652, 6 November 1909, Page 6

THE LAND QUESTION.

TAXING UNEARNED INCREMENT. MR T. E. TAYLOR’S VIEWS. “In England to-day,” said Mr Taylor during the third reading debate on. the Loan Bill in the House of Representatives, “a more radical tiling- is being done in the way of legislation than, anything ever proposed on the floor of this House.” He referred to the proposal that the unearned increment of land was to be shared between the State-and the landowner. The lands of England were being valued for the first time in two hundred years, and the valuation rolls were .being made the basis of a very remarkable tax, which should be in operation in every civilised country, lie explained that if land valued to-day at £SOOO were sold twelve .months hence for £7OOO, from the increase of £2OOO would be deducted, any expenditure by the owner for actual’ improvement, and tlie balance, representing the unearned increment, would be shared between the State and the. owner. They had been'told that they were to have land legislation this session, and he wished to place before members some figures to snow the direction he thought it should take. During the seventeen years period, 189.1. the increase in the capital value,, of property in New Zealand was : 131,000,000, and of this the increase in unimproved value was no less than £85,324,763. During those seventeen years the public debt had been increased by £26,250,000, .They bad pledged the credit of the people of New Zealand on the London market to that tune, and tlie expenditure of the money had increased the unimproved vailie some 60 millions sterling as being in some part due to the efforts of the owners, they had the startling fact that land values had seized upon the whole of the 261 million of public money spent, and had appropriated in addition 60 -million of* community-created value. Mr Mander: Suppose land values go down. Mr Taylor: The prospect of their going down is as remote as that of your ever being Prime Minister of this country. He continued that the tendency all over the world was for land values to increase. He recognised that they fluctuated, but no one would say they should have a fluctuation equal to eighty-millions, with their population steadily increasing. A large portion of the values he had referred to were in the cities. There were only 128,000 freeholders in New Zealand/ and during the seventeen years mentioned the 900,000 odd -people had paid in Customs duties alone £36,000,000 whereas land had only contributed six millions by way cf land 1 tax. Those thirty-six millions had chiefly been raised in taxation on tilings that perished in tlie using, yet tbey had drawn the magnificent sum of six millions from land.

An Opposition member: Freeholders pay Custom, duties. Mr Taylor: And ivell they are able to pay them. Mr Taylor .went on to say that the increase in land taxes was largely the result of the expenditure of twenty-six and a quarter millions of borrowed money. A large portion of whatever had been spent on roads and bridges and railways should have been raised by means of a land tax. (Hear, bear.) There was not a laboring man or woman in New Zealand who had not helped to pay from .his earnings the interest on that twenty-six and a quarter millions of loan money, although it /had created enormous wealth for the benefit of the landowner's. Their system of taxation was most inequitable. They should impose a betterment tax so that public expenditure that distinctly 'increased the value of land should be recouped from a tax upon those increased values. There was nothing revolutionary about that. It was the barest justice to suppose that people to whom the wealth came as a result of the public works expenditure should not leave tlie people to whom none of it came fo pay the piper and bear the burden of taxation in ' tlie shape’ of Customs duties. The Customs formed a burden on their daily earnings. The landowner was in a vastly different position. His share in taxation had brought a remarkably tangible result. As a class those 128,000 freeholders had contributed six millions, and had been made a present of eiglity-five millions.. unearned increment in land values." The very near future should see some system of taxation that would take some of the burden off the landless, and put it on the shoulders of the men who owned' the only thing in New Zealand that- had the faculty of absorbing what it did not earn, 'land. The condition of the laboring class in New Zealand during the last seventeen years had not improved. The Labor .Department’s report said that, though wages had gen? up in that period, the cost of living had also increased to a slightly -greater extent. The farmer was not the only man in the community. To hear the farmer talk one would think that every man not a farmer was merely a parasite on the farmer. But take away the railway, and tell the fanner to hump his wool or his grain to the wharf on -his own hack and tlie farmer would soon discover that the ideal State embraced -men of varied occupations. The industrial class found- themselves where they were seventeen years ago. They were no better off. What about the farming class? They had had'as good a living, had had as high a standard of comfort as the worker during these seventeen years, hut. instead of being no better off, their land values had -gone up by eighty-five millions sterling. j Mr Buick: What about tlie mortgagee ? Mr Taylor: I won’t bother about him. There are plenty of men on your side of the House capable of looking after him. Mr Taylor added, in leaving this subject, that it was one of the thoughts prompted by the Loan Bill. Speaking later in reply, the Prime Minister referred to the fact that several members had been discussing the Government’s Hand proposals, though none of them knew what those proposals would be or anything about them. Mr Malcolm had been unjust and unfair, and had made a declaration that the Prime Minister had applauded practically everything Mr Taylor had said. He (Sir Joseph Ward) 'had done nothing of the kind. He had merely applauded Mr Taylor's opening comment on Mr Massey’s opinion of Mr Herd map’s proposal as to the administration of public works.