452 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 



satisfied to raise rents or to make no change. But the pastoral licensees, the so- 

 called ' squatters,' have ceased to be the chief targets of the agitators for land 

 reform. That unenviable position is now held by the great freeholders. It is at 

 them that the land taxes are aimed, though, by the way, Crown tenants are liable 

 to pay land taxation to the extent of the unimproved value, if any, of their 

 leasehold estate. 



Apart from rates, taxes, and public criticism, the economic position of the 

 large freeholders of Australia and New Zealand has been in recent years highly 

 agreeable. Grazing pays well, and, with few exceptions, their lands are now 

 worth very much more than the sums originally paid for them to the State. In 

 the Parliament of Victoria last year it was pointed out by the Prime Minister 

 that from first to last Australia had sold about 123,000,000 acres of public land 

 for, roughly speaking, the same number of pounds. The average price had been 

 about 11. per acre. The land sold in Victoria was one fifth of the whole. But the 

 unimproved value of this Victorian land was last year reckoned at 127,500,000?. 

 That is, it was several millions more than the original price of all the private free- 

 hold of Australia. Moreover, this assessed value of the Victorian land was pro- 

 bably considerably under its real value. In New Zealand the great estates have 

 been bought from the Crown at prices varying from 5s. to 21. per acre. During 

 the last twenty years the Government there has spent some six millions in buying 

 back about 1,400,000 acres for closer settlement. 



Now for a word or two on the various land taxes. The pioneer land-tax, the 

 Victorian, was imposed by a law enacted in 1877. It affected only rural land, and 

 only estates worth more than 2,500?. Its rate was 1£ per cent, on the capital 

 value of land. But by an absurdly stiff and artificial system of valuation, no land 

 could be held to be worth more than 41. an acre. The incidence of the tax 

 worked out at 9^d. an acre on the dearest land and %d. on the cheapest. Its 

 practical effect was to extract annual sums from 85.000Z. to 125,000?. out of the 

 pockets of between eight and nine hundred substantial proprietors. As a stimulus 

 to subdivision it has been remarkably ineffective. This is all the more curious 

 because it was proposed as a bursting-up tax, and fiercely resisted on that account. 

 The South Australian land tax was imposed in 1884, and stiffened by graduation 

 in 1890. But even on absentee large owners it is but \^d. in the pound capital 

 value, and its effects on latifundin have been very small. The New South Wales 

 tax was light, was not graduated, and was mainly imposed for revenue purposes. 

 Owing to its partial repeal or suspension the receipts from it fell from 345,000?. 

 in 1907 to 80,000?. It did nothing but provide the revenue thus decreased. Mr. 

 Coghlan says of it : ' The results were undoubtedly. unsatisfactory. The revenue 

 was small, the cost of obtaining it large, and the formation of large estates— 

 which the Act ostensibly sought to prevent — was not discouraged.' The West 

 Australian tax is light, and has no history. It has been law for only four years. 

 The distinction which it draws between improved and unimproved land and its 

 doubled tax on the latter are interesting. The Tasmanian tax is levied for 

 revenue purposes. 



On the whole, then, previous to the levying this year of the Federal land-tax 

 by the Commonwealth Government, the Labour Ministry and the Australian 

 States had done little. They were extracting 331,000?. by land taxes out of 

 communities whose total annual taxation was between fourteen and fifteen 

 millions sterling. How utterly their taxes had failed in bursting up the great 

 freeholds a few figures will show. I will quote those given in debate last year in 

 the Commonwealth Parliament by Mr. Hughes, the Attorney-General of 

 Australia : — 



It appears that there are 3.140 landowners in Australia, the unimproved value 

 of whose estates is 5,000?. and under 6,250?. each. There are 4,926 landowners 

 who have estates of between 6,250?. and 12,500?. in unimproved value; 1,095 land- 

 owners whose estates run between 12,500?. and 25,000?. each in unimproved value ; 

 and 766 landowners who have estates of over 25,000?. unimproved value each, the 

 aggregate unimproved value of the last-named being 48,190,000?. Roughly speak- 

 ing, there are fewer than 11,000 who will pay under this tax, including absentees. 

 There may be fewer than 11,000, and I think there will be, but we are unable to 

 tell. A man may have aggregations of estates in various States, and so it is 

 impossible to compute the number exactly : but, roughly speaking, 10,000 persons 

 own 127,000,000?. worth of unimproved land values — that is to say, reckoning the 



