Should Big Estates be Taxed?

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 387, 7 December 1889, Page 2

Should Big Estates be Taxed?

[Wanganui Herald.] Tnx taxation nt the largest estates is far more closely identified with the future prosperity ot the colony than may be supposed at first sight. That it would bs an act of simple justice to the whole community iu easily demonstrated. When 260 men own seven million acres of freehold, end pay nothing, or next to nothing, tor a privilege which muit make them millionaires, while [turning thorn sands into paupers, the simple justice of special taxation needs no elaborate argu, menta to support It. It there io a Liberal party in the colony worthy of the name anfl the support of the people this is one ot the first questions which must be faced by it. The embryo millionaires are not disposed to out up their lands. One or two here and there make a show of dqing so, but the great mejority tie up their estates as fast as they do in England, and prevent even the opens tion ot the natural law of equal division among their children. Several estates lately have been entailed in the form of trusts as rigidly and effectually as under the feudal laws of England. Only the other day a millionaire died possessed of one estate of 80.000 cores. The win directed that this land was not to be subdivided among the family of several children, but that It wae tq be placed in trust and the proceeds divided; It is a fact beyond dispute that landed mono, poly In this colony in proportion to ite area exceeds any other country in the world, and has begun to exorcise Its blighting influence on the prosperity ot the people, The absentees are now becoming a very numerous class, and are drawing away to other countries the eernings ot labour to the tune of millions a year. Carlyle has stated the question thus i " A man with £200,<100 a year eats the whole fruit ot 6,666 men's labour through a year, for you can get a stoqt tradesman to work and maintain himself for the sum of £BQ, Thus ws have private individuals whose wages are equal to the wages ot seven or eight thousand other individuals. What do those highly benefloed individuals do to society for their wages? Kill partridges. Can it last? No, by the soul that is in man It oannot, and shall not." A writer in the Financial B<> former for October comes directly to the point; "If we were to tax the land and abolish the infamous land laws which are now causing millions of acres to be thrown out of cultivation and many thousands of agricultural labours out of employment, then might we look to better times for our starving countrymen. If we could put spades intq the hands of the unemployed, and our ablebodied paupers, and the legions of what are called " loafers " about our streets and docks, and compel them to work or want, then might we hope tor better times. There is not only abundance tor every living creature on the face of God’s earth, but euper abundance on every hand, and but for man's selfishness and avarice paqperisnq would he unknown. The state of things we see around us is a scandal to our boasted civilization. Ths land monopoly is at the Ibottom of much of thia national misery, for wa should remember that all human production consists in working up nature's raw materials, which are scattered around us on all sides with a most beautiful hand. Mr Walker, ot Birmingham, infernal us that he had occasion to go through the papers of a late millionaire, and he found that out of fhrqe-and millions left, there was only £200,000 that was not dlreotlp comprised In land, the rest was in railways, canals, house property, 4c., all with land under them. This land monopoly, held chiefly by a few absentee landlords, has been the cause of'most ot the deplorable destitution in Ireland f it baa retards! all progress there; and it has made that fertile land a by-word among nations. It has also caused the star* ration and misery ws see amongst the laQ. a biding,' well-'oonduo'ted ctof tars of the Scottish Highlands, where land has been cruelly taken from them, and elven over to wealthy men tor purpose of * sport.* A heavy tax on the land values would be moat effectual in solving the great difficulty we have to contend with. The land U tife source of all wealth, and without it no wealth oould possibly be. The land, Carlyle has qtall said, belongs evermore to tffitfl Almighty M*ker of anfl to all H« ohlidreti of man that have ever worked well on It, or that shall ever work well on it. * The notion of selling the land of the World Creator is a rl iioulom impossibility. ’ This laud question is the question Of the hour, and dwarfs every other one, The great' Anti Corn Law Move, meat was an infinitely less important affair than the subject of land tenure and its proper utilisation. The appalling deoreass of our rural population amounting to upwards of 31 ptj cent against 1861 and 1881, te a fact for serious and melancholy thought." This then 1s the question of the hour even In New Zealand, perhaps more so in this part of the world than in monopoly-ridden Britain. A ro ready for the remedy! In other terms have the people become so accustomed to the practice that te impoverishing them that, like the slave, they cling te their fetters? Talk of "public works policies" Indeed | why we oould number on the fingers of one hand all the people in Wanganui who have derived any benefit whatever from the scattering of so much money. Nor is the small farmer any bettor off. And it te the same throughout Naw Zealand. Let u«> theybfore, taka a new departure, and see whether the wider distri, bution of the land will not bring the prosperity we now seek in valu from the reck Issa exploitation of capital in the creation of monopolies. Let the big estates pay a larger proportion Of the taxation, end the monopolies will tend to disappear, leaving In their piece opportunities to the mass of the people to at least live iu comfort, such as they oannot under existing qiroumstanneo enjoy.