Property Tax and bring forward Bills embodying a Progressive Land Tax, and Progressive Income Tax, the proposal was thought to represent the audacity of impudence or desperation. When the rumour proved true, it was predicted that the farmers throughout the length and breath of the country would rise in wrath and terror, scared by the very name of Land Tax. Nevertheless Parliament passed the Bills, with the addition of a light Absentee Tax. The smaller farmers, at any rate, took the appeals of the Property Taxers with apathy, suspecting that under a tax on bare land values they would pay less than under a Property Tax which fell on land, improvements, and live stock as well. Since 1891, therefore, progression or graduation has been in New Zealand a cardinal principle of direct taxation. Land pays no Income Tax, and landowners who have less than £500 worth of bare land value pay no Land Tax. This complete exemption of the very small land owners forms an almost insuperable barrier to the progress of singletaxers. On all land over £500 value 1d. in the £ is paid. The mortgaged farmer deducts the amount of his mortgage from the value of his farm and pays only on the remainder. The money-lender pays 1d. in the £ on the mortgage, which for this purpose is treated as land. An additional graduated tax begins on holdings worth, £5,000. At that stage it is an eighth of a penny. By progressive steps it rises until, on estates assessed at £210,000, it is 2d. Thus under the graduated and simple Land Tax together, the holders of the largest areas pay 3d. in the £, whilst the peasant farmers whose acres are worth less than £500 pay nothing. The owner who pays graduated tax pays upon the whole land value of his estate with no deduction for mortgage. The Graduated Tax brings in about £80,000 a year; the 1d. Land Tax about £200,000; the Income Tax about £70,000. The assessment and collection cause no difficulty. South Australia had a Land Tax before New Zealand; New South Wales has imposed one since. Both differ from New Zealand's. Income earners pay on nothing up to £300 a year. Between £300 and £1,300 the tax is 6d. all round; over £1,300 it rises to a shilling. Joint-stock companies pay a shilling on all income. Another law authorizes local governing bodies to levy their rates on bare land values. Three times the Bill passed the Lower House, only to be rejected in the Upper. It became law in 1896. The adoption of the principle permitted by it is hedged about by various restrictions but some fourteen local bodies have voted in favour thereof.