LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
SPECIAL MOTOR ROADS AND THE NATIONALI- SATION OF THE RAILWAYS.
[To 'THY EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sru,—I have been reading a book recently published (" The Essential Reform : Land Values Taxation," by C. H. Chomley and R. L. Outhwaite, Sidgwick and Jackson) the object of which is to show how the principle of land values taxation laid down by Henry George can be most beneficially applied to present-day needs. No reader of this work can doubt that the author of the Finance Bill has drunk from the same sources, and learnt the same language, as the writers of the book ; and it may not be without interest if I draw attention to their statements as regards the railways of the country. "If the people so will, by the taxation of land values, they can resume the value which they, and they only, have given to all land, including railway land." But "it is not proposed or expected that land values will be taxed entirely into the Treasury, except step by step over a term of years to obviate hardship." So to get at the property of the railway shareholders a little earlier, they suggest that " if great national roads were constructed over which motor traffic, at a high rate of speed, could be permitted, an effective competition would be set up against the railways. This would result in reduced freights and fares to public benefit, and consequently in an enormous reduction in the value of the railway monopoly," which could then be taken over by the State at sacrifice values. Can this be the true inwardness of Mr. Lloyd George's zeal for the creation of
special motor roads P-1 am, Sir, &c., EDWARD BOND.
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