Story: Taxes

This 1907 poster advertises the sale of the Mount Herbert estate near Waipukurau in central Hawke’s Bay. Such auctions became common in the late 1890s and early 1900s as the Liberal government (in power from 1890 to 1912) sought to break up the large estates and encourage smaller farms suitable for families. The Liberal party’s ordinary land tax and their graduated land tax for large estates were aimed at freeing up the land.