ADDRESSES OF WELCOME

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 451, 5 March 1890, Page 5

ADDRESSES OF WELCOME

Representatives of the various public associations met at the Star Hotel, Albertstreet, this morning, for the purpose of presenting an address of welcome to Henry George, the apostle of land nationalisation. The following gentlemen were present: Sir George Grey, Rev. Mr Gulliver, Messrs G. Peacocke, W. .T. Napier, Dr. Beale, King, H. W. Farnall, Kelly, C. Wright, Withy, Baulf, Jennings, Dunne, Hould, Hooper, W. E. Hay, White, and others. Mrs George was also present during the whole of the proceedings. After the deputation had been introduced by Mr Hould, the Rev. E. H. Gulliver, presidentof the Auckland An ti-Poverby Society, stepped forward and said: “Mr Henry George, 1 have been asked, as president of the Anti-Poverty Society, to introduce to you this deputation which you see around me, and to present yon with an address of welcome. It had been our intention to meet you at the wharf and tender our welcomo at the steamer’s side, bub the early arrival of the boat made that a matter of impossibility, and 1 must ask you to take tho will for the deed. This is the first visit you have paid to the Australian colonies, and you may therefore be considered as a stranger, bub you will find wherever you go the heartiest of welcomes, and on all sides you will meet men who are with you in the great principle von have so fearlessly announced. Allow me to give you the heartiest welcome, and without further preface read you tho address : To Mr Henry George, by tho Anti-Poverty Society, Knights of Labour, and Progressive League of Auckland, New Zealand, March, 1890. On the occasion of this your first arrival io New Zealand, we, who have long watched with heartfelt sympathy and admiration your able and fearless advocacy of tho common right of every mail to a just share in the soil of the country to which ho belongs, desire to welcome you, as the foremost leader in the great cause of land reform, upon which, as we believe, the social amelioration of civilised humanity in great measure depends. We desire to express our sincere gratification that you have been enabled to visit these Australian colonies, feeling assured that the personal promulgation of your views in our several centres of population will materially hasten the achievement of a social and political reform which is based upon principles of common sense and natural justice. We trust and believe that the result of your mission will be to powerfully aid in dissipating the cloud of prejudice through which many, even in these new lands, view the existing system of land tenure, and the liscal policy with which it is connected—a prejudice born of ignorance, and the false impressions concerning* the aims and objects of the single tax party, assiduously fostered in the public mind by' the influence of a self-interested section of society. As self - respecting Anglo-Saxons, we desire to gain nothing by \iolcnce that can be achieved by legtimate political action. We claim tobethechampions of thetruest public honesty, and the sacred right of every man to the undisturbed possession and enjoyment of the entire fruits of his own industry'. As the acknowledged leader in the cause we all all have at heart, as a brother in race, and as a friend of man, whose brilliant genius and dauntless spirit, and warm human sympathies command the respect and esteem uf all good men and true, we joyfully greet your coming amongst us, and wish you God-speed in your labours, until in due course you again reach this city to give, as we trust, a public exposition of the great question with which the name of Henry George is so indissolubly and honourably associated.—Signed on behalf of above bodies, E. 11. Gulliver, R. A. Hould, A. Kelly, B. C. Beale, E. Withy, G. L. Peacocke, H. W. Farnall, C. S. Wright, R. H. Hooter, A. Withy, T. West, J. J. Poland, A. Cowley, F. G. Platt, J. Batty, J. H. Slmmonds, J. G, Walsh, W. G. Ramson.”

Mr Gulliver added : “ At the same time 1 hand you the card of a honorary member of our Societv.” Mr Henry George said : “1 thank you very much for the kind feeling expressed in this address, and also for having made me a hon. member of tho Auckland AntiPoverty Society, The visit has peculiar interests to mo as an American—one of that people who were the first great offshoot from the Mother Country, the first of the great new nations who are destined to prove in the coming time, a power greater ihan that of Rome in the old civilisation. It is of especial interest for me to come amongst the newest of these communities, for New Zealand is the newest of these colonies and of the same age as myself. Fifty years is a long time in the life of an individual, but it is only as a day in the life of a nation. Your very youth, the fact that you arc the youngest amongst the great Anglo-Saxon nations that are springing up, gives you a very great advantage. The study of what you are doing, the advance you have made and the mistakes you have committed, is fraught with interesting lessons, and our own mistakes in America may ' be of great use to you in New Zealand. It has been the great mistake in our country to forget that we are all equal, and from that, I think, most of our mistakes have proceeded. Now, thank God ! all over the English-speak-ing world there is a movement going forward to make that theory the basis of our social procedure. It has never been entirely forgotten, and every year it is increasing in activity. Men like your own Sir George Grey (applause) have been working in that direction. (Applause.) Now the time has come when this movement must go forward to success. It is hardly six months since I left Great Britain, after a tour through all the principal towns of that great country. It is only a few weeks since I left the United States, and the movement is going on in both countries in a manner that exceeds expectations. It is almost impossible at this distance for you, by means of the press, to know how our ideas are pervading the masses of Great Britain. They havealreadyeomototheverge of practicable politics, and rank amongstthe important political questions before the country. So in the United States, the tariff qussbion moved by President Cleveland, together with the hot discussion following upon it, has brought economic questions more fully before the American people than they have been brought before them since the beginning of 'the Republic. For a long time the dispute over the slavery question occupied the minds of the people, bub slavery was abolished all over the United States. So there has been growing a deep feeling of unrest and disquiet with the existing condition of affairs. There was the great labour movement, which was to guarantee food for all without denying labour to any. That all tended to show a consciousness that something was wrong, 1 and was the beginning of the great movement. The tariff question was also recognised as moving in the direction I would wish to go. We believe in the largest production and the fullest distribution of work —not to hamper trade or commerce, but to allow the fullest intercourse with other countries. (Applause.) The man who brings capital we look upon as a benefactor,

as we do also upon him who makes two blades of grass to grow where before there was but one. To the man who makes capital we would give the fullest scope to use all the energy and industry he possesses (applause), and these are the ideas that are now making progress all through tho United States. The next Congressional election comes off' this year, and it will show an advance in our ideas. All over the country there i 3 an evidence of disquiet with tho present sy'stem of taxation, and this gives an advantageous opportunity to bring forward our opinions. I shall have other opportunities of talking to you, for I intend to return here again (applause), but in reference to this little address. I want to express the pleasure 1 have at coming to this country and learning of its history and progress. I think if ever there was a time in the world when a man who was capable of doing anything should feel it is a good lime to live, it is now. (Applause.) You here arc building up a community which in a short time may have a population as large as that of the Mother Country. It is i ot merely the destiny and improvement of this nation that is being secured by you, but of the whole world. The future of our race is certain. For a long time our race must be the leading ono in the world, leading, let us hope, the van of civilisation. The inlluence of one country upon another wherever our language is spoken is becoming more decided and immediate. The abuses in Great Britain have been impressed upon the mind of the people by influence from the United States and these colonies which has been brought to bear upon the Mother Country. This inlluence has, 1 think, been altogether for good. One great movement now going on in the United States is that of making a change in the mode of our election. Our present system of voting is the real root of so much of that corruption and party rule in our politics that has done so much to create a feeling of disgust at democratic institutions. The system of ticket pedlars had the result that i the way in which a man vot&d could be easily found out. This has given party organisation undue influence in the past. We are now trying to adopt generally the system of voting at present used in Australia. In 1883 I wrote an article in a paper proposing this system for the United States, but even one of my own friends sold me I was talking about an impossibility. In 1886 I stood as the working man’s candidate for the mayoralty of New York. Then we introduced the Australian system of voting, and already 1 it has been adopted by 10 States, and I hope that in a little time this system will become common in America. When that is done the greatest step towards improvement in our elective system will have been made. This will lessen the importance of money and increase the value of brains, and enable us to bring in questions of moment to the people rather than mere struggles for jobbery which have to often disgraced us.” Mr George then referred to the system of claiming protection for American industry, and said nowadays the question was not so much what a man did as what he thought. He laid particular stress upon the fact that peaceable means were the only means by which they could secure their object. Tyrants might be overthrown by force, but unless something better was substituted another tyrant would rise. So it was with laws ; bad laws if repealed must be replaced with something better. Their work was to educate. It was not because oco class oppressed another that the masses found it bard to live. It was simply want of knowledge amongst themselves. What they aimed at was simply the culmination of Christianity. (Applause) the carrying into effect of the golden rule—to bring on earth that kingdom of righteousness which the Master had designed. Therefore, the object of the Anti-Poverty Society was no dream of dreamers, or crank of cranks. He believed it was possible, because God was good, that He would not support injustice. Those who worked in this cause were working nob merely for (he good of their children, but for the whole world.

Air George then took Mr Gulliver by the hand and said, “ In that spirit which binds us all together, whether,it be under the North Star or the Southern Cross, I thank you.” Mr Gulliver said an uncrowned king wa3 amongst them who ought really to have presented the address, although he had himself been asked to do so—he referred to Sir George Grey. (Applause.) Air Gulliver then devoted a few moments in eulogising the services of the veteran statesman in the Liberal cause, and concluded by asking Sir George Grey to address the meeting. Sir George only spoke a few words. He said lie had to thank Mr George for many ideas. He had been his companion for years in working out this great question. Mr Henry George said that nothing had given him greater gratification than the fact of meeting Sir Geo. Grey. He felt that Sir George was a little in advance of his time ; 10 years ago he gave the people of this colony that which would have made them the leading English people in the world —the right of the single vote, but it wa3 too early (applause); the seed was sown, but the ground was not prepared. He hoped that Sir George Grey might yet live bo see it grow and cover the whole earth. But it mattered littlo now who lived or who died, for the time and tide were with them. After Air George had shaken hands with all present the deputation retired. Soon afterward Air George and his wife were accompanied on board tho mail steamer by Sir George Grey, Rev. E.II. Gulliver and Mr Hould, where lie bade them farewell until his return from Australia.