Papurau Newydd Cymru

Chwiliwch 15 miliwn o erthyglau papurau newydd Cymru

Cuddio Rhestr Erthyglau

13 erthygl ar y dudalen hon

" THE PROOF OF THE PUDDING."

A LANDLORD'S REASONING.

Newyddion
Dyfynnu
Rhannu

A LANDLORD'S REASONING. IT is not quite so easy to deal with Mr Heap's arguments against the taxation of unearned increment, for the simple reason that they are difficult to understand. Plain enough, however, is his assertion that our "statements are absurd," because, like Mr Winston Churchill, we ignore the great laws which govern this earth-the law of supply and demand." Such a contention cannot well be described. It cannot be considered as even comical. Every intel- ligent person who has any knowledge of the subject knows that this suggested tax is governed precisely by the law ot supply and demand. Indeed, Mr Heap answers himself in the admission that land is a fixed quantity capable of being cornered and forced up to any price." That is just what is being done, and what the Government propose is to tax the monopoly value. Land, says Mr Heap, is not worth one-half what it was forty years ago, except where there is a special demand-a demand which he forgets to say is created by communal and industrial development. Elsewhere the burdens on land will not be increased. We cannot find space to follow him into a somewhat nonsensical definition of un- earned increment in the marketable value of sheep. The nearest point you can get to it," he observes, is the man with the hoe, and even he but scratches the earth and nature does the rest, yielding an hundred-fold." Do the owners of unearned increment even scratch, that the earth may yield her fruits ? Yes, answers Mr Heap, they work hard, and earn their increment as much as Mr Churchill." Many of them probably do so in estimating and pocketing the thousands of pounds netted without moving hand or foot or brain. One of the Duke of Westminster's ancestors in the time of the Stuarts had the good fortune to woo and wed a cowfeeder's daughter, for through the marriage he came into posses- sion of fields in Mayfair which are now in the heart of fashionable London. Owing to the demand for land to live upon, the value l of this land rose to a fabulous price, but the Duke did nothing to create that wealth which now flows into his pockets. But Mr Heap would say he supplied a demand, and was entitled to his price, as, of course, are all others who have locked up land in the neighbourhood of cities until the needs of industry alone had swelled its value. The tribute of industry to idleness. There is no unearned increment in all the philoso- phy of Mr Heap, and, therefore, -like the great majority of landlords, instead of tax- ing such monopolies, he would find the necessary national revenue by broadening the basis of taxation, under which the work- ing people would pay toll on all they eat and wear-a tax on the raw material of health and strength. What we want, and what the country is determined to have, is more free trade in land which is the raw material oi industry and the central factor in the solution of our most grievous social problems. The farcical outcry of landlords who desire to so manipulate our fiscal system that the taxes will benefit them more than the Treasury, does not and cannot alter the public estimate of a Budget conceived of common sense and justice- a Budget that has caused men to think and to realise better than before the why and the wherefore and the precise purposes of Tariff Reform as the only Tory alternative to the taxation of unearned wealth.

THE EVENING CLASSES.

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