f those who vote for this party do not, and its leaders have
felt that to have advocated nationalization hitherto would have meant
that they would have failed to gain control of the government. And in
proportion as the new land tax creates new farmers, the prospects will
be worse than they are to-day.

The existing land laws of New Zealand are extremely moderate steps in
the direction of nationalization. In 1907, after the best land had been
taken up, a system of 66-year leases was introduced, but only as a
voluntary alternative to purchase. After 1908 the annual purchases of
large estates were divided into small lots and leased for terms of 33
years, but this applies only to a relatively small amount of land. It
was only in 1907 that the graduated land tax began to be enforced in a
way automatically to break up the large estates as it had been expected
to do, and it was only in 1910 that the new and more heavily graduated
scale went into effect. And finally it was only in 1907 that large
landowners were forbidden to purchase, even indirectly, government land.
It has taken all these years even to discourage large estates
effectively, to say nothing of nationalization.

"Some writers have predicted that the appetite for reform by
taxation will grow, and that the taxation will be increased and the
exemptions diminished until all the rent will be taken and the land
practically confiscated, according to the proposals of Henry
George. But the landless man, when he becomes a landholder, ceases
to be a single taxer, and is strongly opposed to Socialism. The
land legislation of New Zealand, although apparently Socialistic,
is producing results directly opposed to Socialism by converting a
lot of dissatisfied people into stanch upholders of private
ownership of land and other forms of private property. The small
farmers, then, are breaking away from their former allies, the
working people of the towns, who now find themselves in the
minority, but who are increasing in numbers and who will demand,
sooner or later, a large share in the product of industry as the
price of loyalty to the capitalistic system."[81]

Without land nationalization the process of nationalizing industry
cannot be expected to proceed faster than it pays for itself--for we
cannot reckon as part of the national profits the increased land values
national enterprises bring about. N