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CORRESPONDENCE.

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"STILL IN THE LAND OF THE…

SIX HUNDRED SHEEP DESTROYED…

'AN APPEAL TO FOOTBALLERS.

PENTREBACH NEW SCHOOL.

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DUTIES ON LAND VALUES V DUTIES…

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DUTIES ON LAND VALUES V DUTIES ON TEA. Sir,—In the House of Commons the other night Mr Lloyd George said: "The House of Commons were entitled to say that they were not going to put a duty on tea to be paad for bv the poor people of this country unless land values bore their share of the burden." Bearing on this statement I wish to point out that we on this statement I wish to point out that at present the revenue derived from the Customs duty on tea amounts to £ 5,800,000, and as the tax is levied on each pound imported it falls with the greatest severity on the consumers of the cheapest quality of tea. But this is not the essential injustice. The great wrong of the indirect taxation on tea; and on all other articles of food is that it is a tax on wages, which aret obtained in most case at the expense of hard toil. With all due deference to the Chancellor of the Exchequer I would submit that the de- mocratic forces, who are behind him, and who have made this issue a national one, demand that this unjust indirect taxation be altogether repealed, and its place taken by a direct levy upon land values. We want the taxation of land values in substitution of taxation on food and comforts. The two proposals instead of being parallel should be directly opposed to one an- other. Here is an illustration of what is meant. The "Times" of 23th February, 1910, reports as follows: It is stated that a plot of land at the corner of Wall-street and Nassau-street. New York. was sold at the rate of 2164 per sq- foot, or £ 7.143.840 per acre, and that a piece of land close to the Bank of England had been sold at the rate of £100 per sq. foot, or £ 4,356,000 per acre." Now the question is, from whom shall the State justly demand the payment of taxation, from the owner of land worth £4,356,000 per acre, for whom this vast wealth is accumulated, at no risk or sacrifice on his part, or from the poor working woman, with a weekly wage of 10s. buying tea at Is. 3d. per pounJ. and paying, as she does, a tax of up- wards of 33 per cent. ou that expenditure The abolition of the breakfast table duties has long had a prominent place in the Liberal programme. As far back as 1899 the present Lord Advocate pointed out the iniquity of these taxes, declaring in a speech at Stoney- burn that "The taxation of tea. coffee, tobacco, dried fruits, and other coitimodities at present paying Customs duty, should be entirely taken away, and there should be no taxation upon these commodities. At present (1399) the in- oome was something like eighty-eight millions, fifty of which was raised by indirect taxation-- that is taxation upon tea and other commodi- ties. Working men who used as much, if not more, of these commodities, therefore, yielded the greater share of the taxation of the country. ] The extent the ioeoaif irhieh could be de II rived from land value taxation was enormous, besides it would tend to brisk building trade." Our rating and taxing laws are all in favour of the landowner. May I add in conclusion that special leaflets bearing on the nature and in- cidence of the Tea Tax, the Tobacco Tax, and tho Breakfast Table Duties have been published by the United Committee for the Taxation of Land Values, 20, Tothill-street, London, S.W., to whom your readers are welcome to apply for copies.—Yours, etc., A. W. MADSDEN. 20, Tothiil street, 2nd March, 1910. 20, Tothiil street, 2nd March, 1910.

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EBBW VALE CLERGYMAN AND SOCIALISM.…

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PENTREBACH NEW SCHOOL.