OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 435, 29 March 1890, Page 4

OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) Sydney, March 12. Henry George is the sensation of the moment. The reception which has been accorded and the enthusiasm which bis utter* ances have evoked, bear convincing testimony to the fact that deep down in the heart o f our colonial humanity there is more thoughtfulness and more conscientiousness than we are apt to imagine. This is the chord divine which is touched by noble statements of noble truths—truths which to the eye that is not blinded by ignoble aims, shine in their own self-evidencing light. “ The law of justice is the supreme law of the world. Whatever a man produces by his own exertions from the matter and forces of the universe, is aod ought to be his, against all the world. That which does not accord with justice must bring injury—that which does accord with it must promote the best interests of all.” So far

have we deteriorated from the days of ancient Borne, when fiat justitia ruat coelum was accepted as a truism, that such simple truths as fbese sound almost like a new gospel. But there are the seven thousand ready to receive them. They have taken root, and I doubt not, in spite of the opposition and coldness with which they are received in other quarters, will yet give a good account of themselves. From the axiom that every man is entitled

io what he has himself produced flows naturally and simply the doctrine that the community is entitled to what it has produced, that is, to the value which is given by its presence to the land on which it carries on its operations. When the community, therefore, in the person of its duly appointed officers, needs money for public purposes and proposes to fake it by taxation, it should first take that which has been produced by itself in preference to depriving its members of the fruit of their individual exertions. Suum cuique—e&eh to bis own—is the unchangeable truth or law which is at the bottom of it. Those to whom the care of the public interests has been confided cannot safely ignore the rights of the public in this matter. As well as taking from the public that which is deemed necessary for public purposes it is obviously their duty to secure for the public that to which it is justly entitled, and any neglect in either ibe ore or the other must be productive of injustice and wrong, and therefore of oppression and misery. In the latter case that which is for the public benefit is perverted to the public injury, with consequences which are forcing themselves more and more strongly on public attention. Such, as it seems to me, are the teachings of the American economist and orator. As to their practical application, that he wisely leaves to the good sense of the people who adopt them. For my own part it seems to me equally self-evident that rights which have been long slept upon ought not, even if it were possible, to be enforced with suddenness or violence. The progress of the principle of taxation of land values must necessarily be gradual. As long as it is not complete, there is room for discrimination also. The good sense of communities which have imposed an income tax makes exemptions in the case of persons of small income, although, in one aspect of the rigid logic of the case, they should be equally liable with others. So, also, the good sense of communities which commence to tax land values will exempt, partially or wholly, those whose occupancy of land tends mot-t obviously to the public good, and will endeavor to make it press most heavily upon those who use the land as a means of extortion, and who do not make an adequate return for the revenues they exact. The householder, the farmer, the gardener — all, in short, who by their own effort make the land productive and thus add to the common wealth will be regarded with a favorable eye in the ratio of their productiveness to the land

which they hold. Those who monopolise land without rendering it productive in order that they may profit by the increment of value which is produced by the labors and presence of others will be selected as the proper mark for the heaviest taxation. The public good, in short, in this case, as it ought to be in all others, will be the final test and criterion, rather than any narrow and technical adhesion to formulated doctrine. However, all this is for the future. At present, although delighted crowds enthusiastically applaud Mr George’s lectures, there is a great deal of opposition. It ranges from the open and undisguised hostility of the mere landgrabber, who fears that bis prey may be snatched from his teeth,to the jealousy of other reformers who see in him not a clearheaded thinker and co-operator, but a competitor. Teetotallers distrust the “single tax” because they think it would abolish taxation on liquor, and thus conduce to drunkenness. Protectionists distrust it because they think that under it our ironworkers and agriculturists would be exposed to the unrestricted competition of the cheap labor of other countries. Revenue tariffists distrust it because it proposes to abolish customhouses. Socialists, anarchists, and other innovators positively hate it because it promises to accomplish the end which they are seeking withoot interference with individual liberty or individual property. In regard to all these Mr George is a veritable Ishmael. His hand is against every man, and every man’s hand against him. But thecentra! truth which he maintains is potent enough to prevail against ail ol them. The right of the community to the value which the community has created is incontestable. The number who see it is increasing daily, and they will soon be numerous enough to compel the legislature to make some move in the right direction I am still, however, of opinion that the * single tax • is an unhappy one.- It challenges opposition which is ready uncalled for. Suppose a movement to be made in the direction of taxing unimproved land values. For years, probably for a generation, perhaps for a century, it would fail in appropriating the whole value. Still more would it M in providing sufficient revenue for the requirements of the country. As a beginning we Cuuld not hope for more than id or id in the £, and that with liber.’ exemptions to small and productive hold< This would mly form a fraction of tfa, -rB- - required for revenue purposes ' TBBt balance would still require to ha * -* n<J the methods in which all shades of raised by fiscal opinion would have the' political or matter of fact Mr George h»' r Slj y- As G to revenue tariffism, wfijqh -> much opposed

the present system of th > 8 supposed to be Protectionism. Ther» a colony, as he is to reaeon why Protect*-" *• therefore, no more than the so q, joists should oppose him Gecrge, in fr lied Free Traders. Mr former in th .'*• ts at one with the of the <■ -e* r . end, which is the good that T uouutr;/. The only difference tariff caQ 996 between them on the th' question is that he insists in looking at .>ngs as they omght to be. The latter deem it more in cons onsnoe with the fitness of things to look a t them as they are. As to theory, Mr Ge orge is unapproachable. If commeice were merely the benevolent interchange of commodities which he deems it; if skilled laborers could abandon their callings and take to agricultural labor without individual distress or national loss, if a new market could be assured for the vast increase of raw material which would thus be raised, Protection would have no reason for its existence. It would be as much out of place as the idea of warlike preparation for defence in a general millennium. But until this comes to pass, like the army and navy, it will continue to have a good deal to say for itself. Both our political leaders, Mr Dibbs and Sir Henry Parkes, have taken advantage of Mr George’s visit to Sydney to make political pronundamentoes in the country districts. Their utterances seem superficial and commonplace beside tbe more profound questions which are now agitating men’s minds. They may be, and very likely are, better adapted to tickle the ears of the groundlings. Astute politicians don’t spend a lifetime in haranguing voters to no purpose. If they can’t guage tbe exact intellect and moral capacities of tbe various ” Buncombes ” they address, no one can. It seems trivial and contemptible stuff. But here again we are face to face with tbe difference between what is and what ought to be. If audiences were more intelligent or more conscientious they would demand mental pubulum of a higher order. But whilst Mr George can attract audiences of five or six thousand nightly (every one of whom pays for admission and comes through the pouring rain) as he has been doing since his arrival, there is no just ground tor tapair,