Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-02-23
WANT SMALL FARMS
New zealanders Are Opposed to Large
Holdings.
GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP OF LAND
Many Curious Features of the
Economic System.
HOW TAXES ARE GRADED
Copyright. 1901. by Frank G. Carpenter9
special Correspondence of The Evening Star.

Copyright. 1901. by Frank G Carpenter)
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.
WELLINGTON New Zealand.
These questions are addressed to the land
nabobs of the United States, to corpora
tons and individuals who own their thou
sands of acres, who control vast tracts of
pastures or who manage the bonanza farms
of the great northwest:
How would you like to have your lands at
the mercy of the government, to be COM
PEELED to sell them at 10 per cent above the
valuation you enter them for taxes, and
to pay such taxes upon them that you Will
have to cultivate every part of them to
make them a paying investment?
How would YOU like to have your taxes
increased in proportion to the extent of
your property. that they will be proper
tionately double or treble those of the small
holders about you, and if you live outside
the state in which the lands are situated so
that you will have to pay - per cent more
than any of the people who live on their
lands?
That is the way they are doing things in
New Zealand.
Here are some questions for the small
property holders. for farmers who own
lands worth less than $500:
How would you like to pay no taxes
whatever upon one-third of your property,
or, if the property is valued at less than
81 500 taxes whatever?
How would you like to have all Your i'm
provements deducted from the assessed val
uation and the tax merely laid on the land
as 1t was when unimproved?
How would You like to pay only on that
part of the land which you really own. the
amount of your mortgages being deducted
from the tax valuatiOn-to pay. in fact. no
tax upon anything outside the unimprOved
land you have paid for and your income,
and this in case the said income annually
amounts to more than S1.Jt0?
That Is the way they do things in New
Zealand.
Here are some questions for those who
have no land at all?
How would you like 10 the big estates
OF this country taken possession of by the
government and redistributed in small sec
lions to you at cost ON long time at 5 per
cent interest?
How would you like to have advances
made to you for building your house and
fencing Your land and the terms of pay
ment made 50 easy that you could either
pay for the whole or have ii on lease at
this low interest for 800 years the rent not
being raised, no matter how much improve
ments you put the land in the way If
cultivation. fertilization and buildings?
That is the way they doing some
things in New Zealand.
Social Pests.
The above are among the curious fea-
lures of New Zealand's land system. The
New Zealanders do not believe in large
holdings and they are doing all that
they can to have their country divided I'D
into small farms. They call the large land
holder social pest, and scrupie not u
tell him that they Will be glad to have
him leave the country. They tax him in
every way possible To get him to leave ana
If he is absentee. living in Europe or
elsewhere. they 50 pile on the taxes that
he has To sell.
At present absentee property owners are
charged ~ per cent more taxes than those
living in New Zealand. and the taxes rise
in proportion to the amount Of land one
man owns
Everything is done to encourage small
farmers. The man whose income is less