"LAND, LABOUR, AND CAPITAL." Address by Mr W. L. Rees. Auckland, March 24.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 95, 28 March 1885, Page 6

"LAND, LABOUR, AND CAPITAL." Address by Mr W. L. Rees. Auckland, March 24.

A public address upon the above subject was delivered last night, in the Theatre Royal, under the auspices of the Trades and Labour Council, by Mr W. L. Rees. There was only a moderate attendance, but larger than one would have expected in view of the extreme inclemency of the weather. Mr F. Roycroft (President of the Council) occupied the chair, and other members of the same body were also seated upon the platform. The Hon. J, Colton (Premier of Sooth Australia), and the Hon. Capt. Hill, of Fiji, were amongst the visitors. The Chairman briefly opened the proceedings, and introduced Mr Rees, who was received with a round of applause. The lecturer said that although the audience was not a very large one, he accepted it as a personal compliment that on so unpropitious an evening even so many had braved the elements to be present. After a passing reference to the services which SirGeo. Grey had rendered the working men, Mr Roes went on to say that the subject he had to deal with that evening was confessedly the one question of the day, and a question, too, which was becoming increasingly important as time went on. It therefore behoved us, as the founders of a young nation, to make ourselves conversant with it, so that the lines we laid down should rest upon durable foundations. The lands that were now waste and empty would ere loti£ support a vast population, and we should deal with them in a liberal manner while yet the conditions were favourable. Prosperity was always a bad season for precautionary reforms, for people were apt to be rendered apathetic and careless of the future while the present was marked by an abundance of good things ; but when tho circumstances here have approximated to those which prevailed at Horne — when the land had passed into private hands, and population was swiftly increasing, the same economic laws would operate here as there. What thatmeantthey had before their eyes every day. They saw the Highland crofters evicted from the country which their ancestors had occupied for centuries, the Irish peasant turned out from his lowly hut, and the growth in the towns of that vast floating population which, as Mac m lay had said, threatened suciecy more ominously than did the Huns and Vandals of Ancient Rome. In our own days we had seen, as the result of the operation of the British land 1-iws, that dreadful exodus in a lew years from Ireland of tw omillions of people chased by plague and famine, leaving numberless graves in their track, and settling down on the prairies of the Far West with a terrible hatred of the institutions of the country which had driven them from their native land In other lands, and even in those of the New World, the same state of things was either prevailing or was threat ened. He had s~en from a recent American paper that Texas, one of the most flourishing States of the Union, was already overrun by tramps, while no less than two or three million tramps had passed through the American citie3 in two or three years. And yet in face of these things there was no less an area of waste land in Canada alone than two thousand millions of square acres sufficient for tho settlement of the entire population of the world. How was it, that while there were ten million acres of waste land within bailing distance of Auckland, there was a single man in want of employment of New Zealand ? Because our economic conditions did not arise from fairness and right. * As a writer had well observed, under the existing ecenomic system, where there was the greatest progress and wealth, there was the greatest poverty. He proposed that evening to point out how this came about, and then how it might be remedied. In the first place he invited them to look into the present condition of the working classes. In the olden time the manufacturer had but few workmen, and they were termed handicraftsmen, because there was but little labour-saving machinery, and therefore the craft of the hand came into play. Machinery was now taking its place in every industry, and the sawpit had developed into the sawmill, the boot-shop into the boot factory, and the blacksmith's shop into the foundry. No doubt the effect had been to largely increase the wealth of the world, but the old ties between employers and employed were gone. The village commons, with their opportunities of fres pasturage, had disappeared, the great territorial magnates had swallowed up the smaller holdings, and the people were driven into the towns to struggle for a bare livelihood. The same laws which in England had brought about this condition of things were operating here, and the result would inevitably be the same unless the organisations of the rich and powerful were met and controlled by a larger organisation on the part of the people. There were three factors of production existent in the world, viz., the land upon which we live with all the forces of nature, science, and art which enable manufactures to be made ; the labour of men's hands and minds ; and the capital which employed labour and enabled it to produce things from land and labour. If it were not for the united power of land, wealth, and labour, nothing could be produced at all. Th-i regular yearly return of the farmer was hi 3 harvest, the yearly fruit of capital was interest, and the yearly value of the labourer was his wages. Those were the disbursements which united to make production — rent for land, interest for capital, and wages for the labourer. But there remained, after these three classes ot disbursements, an immense mass of property. The land had risen largely in value, the warehouse had been filled with goods, and this it was which constituted profit and produced wealth. Yet not a solitary penny of it went to labour. It all went into the pockets of the landowner and the capitalist. So long as the economic laws which led to this result were allowed to operate, so long would this robbery upon every labouring man in the country continue fco be perpetrated. Of the profit to which he had alluded, one part was represented by tho cash balances which companies paid. ™ dividends, and trom which private individuals derived handsome income 3. The other part was that steady progressive increase of land, which was known as the unearned increment in the value of land, in which the working classes did not share at all, although it was they who produced it, Lapse of time only made this state of things worse, for as population increased wages would go down until they reached the limit of the bare means of subsistence. The remedies proposed were very many, but none of them, with two exceptions, were remedies which went to the root of the whole subject. Better houses for the people, a better State education, the shifting of the burdens of taxation, and such proposals were only partial remedies. They wanted to get at the root of the matter by bringing into exia ence Buch organisations and laws as would enable all to share equally in that wealth which

they contributed to produce, The landowner would have his share, the owner of the capital his share, and the labourer hie wages, besides his share of the profit as well That would solve the question under consideration, for under such a condition of things there could be no more poverty, for with the union of labour, land, and capital ; there would be ample room for all. The two chief systems which had been proposed for the solution of the problom were, firstly, the one advocated by the Rev. Mr Malthus, and, secondly, that propounded by Mr Henry George. (Cheers.) Malthus's scheme was that the labouring classes should not have more than a certain number of children— a scheme which might at once be passed by as contemptible and abhorrent to humanity. Mr George claimed for the State the ownership of the land. He proposed that no land should be sold, but kept and let from time to time, and insisted he that the State should also possess itself of the unearned increment, both of public and private property. The State would then have ample funds for all its purposes, instead of taxing labour for its exigencies, Mr George's system did not go far enough, for it took no regard of commerce. There was a necessity for a fair distribution of property, and that could only be done by voluntary agreement. Labour being stronger than capital, could, by combination, compel this result. The people must unite in a vast organisation, and the thing would be perfectly feasible and easy of attainment— an organisation which should join the three factors of production in one proprietary under the jointstock principle, and which should accomplish on an almost universal scale that which joint-stock companies at Home and abroad were now doing on a smaller scale. What he proposed was a National Co-opera-tive Society of the Industrial Classes of New Zealand, and, once it was formed, it would meet with such a response from the people of England and Americ i as would go far to revolutionise the state of affairs, and give to the labouring classes that which they had a right to claim. It must be governed by the principle that every labourer should, propoi tionate to his labour, share in the profits, no matter how long or how short his term of work. He proposed then, to form a joint stock company of that character, and open to all. The Company would not confine itself to one class of products, but devote itself to all. The social reform had never before been carried so far as it would be by his proposal, and he had determined to reveal it first in the city where he was known, and with which he had so long been identified, more especially as the East Coast of this province afforded special facilities for its successful trial. He considered that the East Coast was the best field for the initiation of his scheme, and all having the interest of the suggested community at heart would do well to give it their assistance, for once the scheme was started, it would know ne end so long as the community existed. Labourers would be employed by the Company as they were now, and paid the current rate of wages, whether they worked upon farms, in shops, or in factories, and at the end of eaoh year they would be entitled to rank for their share of cash profits and profits caused by increased value of property. These would be apportioned in the form of additional shares in the concern, so that the dividends would grow from year to year. The experiment would go on extending until the whole race of middlemen had been done away with, and the entire population of New Zealand had been absorbed by it. In answer to questions, Mr Rees said that the capital would be furnished by the people themselves, and by loans from capitalists ; that any political difficulties in the way of the scheme would be solved by the election of a House of Representatives on the platform he proposed ; that he had his scheme written out and thoroughly particularised ; and that as he intended to deliver his lecture throughout New Zealand,he would not publish it just yet in pamphlet form. On the motion of Mr Farxell, seconded by Mr F. Browning, a vote of thanks was passed by acclamation to Mr Rees for his address. In acknowledging the compliment, Mr Rees invited all wno were willing to become shareholders in his Company, or to give the movement their countenance, to send in their names to Mr Fax'nell. The assemblage then dispersed.