HENRY GEORGE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 482, 21 June 1890, Page 6

HENRY GEORGE.

FAREWELL ADDRESS IN SYDNEY. At his last public address in Sydney M\. George said: “He went away, bub he would always think of this country and colony as he never thought beforeHe could say that he left friends—friends whose friendship he cherished. He had been enormously interested with the future probabilities of this country ; in many respects they were not appreciated abroad. He had never realised how much good land they had : hovv grand the future must be. In many things Australia was ahead of America, and in many things she was ahead of the world. Some things that Americans looked upon as impossible were so well established here that people took no particular notice of. them. What a boon Australians had in thenballot system. Thank God! America was adopting it, for it would enable thousands of men to exercise, the right of citizenship who to-day were intimidated by their protectionist employers. (Great cheering.) Australians had a new land ; a homogeneous people. They were blessed beyond other nations in this, that they had never yet had—and might God in his good providence always avertit—a war. (Cheers.) The American Republic was cradled in war. (A voice : Caused by free trade.) Caused by free trade ? Caused by protection ! That war sprang from a crazy King, from a brutal Ministry, from the selfish policy of the protection party of England. (Enthusiastic cheering.) Strangle the industries of a colony by restricted laws? No ! Australians in these things were ahead of other people. With the opportunity came the responsibility, and from the people to whom much was given would much be required. The very blessings and opportunities showered upon Australia made it incumbent upon her to lead the world. (Cheers.) They had stood well, sturdy colonists of New South Wales, iu not yielding to the blandishments of protection ; they should guard agaiast it taking them unawares or in any guise. Let them not put it into the. power of anyone to stretch a protective tariff across the mouth of the beautiful harbour of .Sydney. (Cheers.) Nay, more, let them step forward and abolish what few duties they had and set to the world an example of true free trade. Time would only permit of very brief reference to some of the things upon the possession of which Australia was to be congratulated, so he would pass on to mention a few matters in which amendment was needed. First, there was the centralised government. (A voice: We will alter that directly). There was in the mode of government a want of what might be termed home rule. There was something demoralising in the way in which subsidies were ladled out to the municipalities, and in the unjust way in which money was raked in from land sales and then doled out again. Why, in the very towns the people did not plant trees until they had received a donation of trees from the. Government, or pound for pound subsidy. The thing they should insist upon without delay was the passing into law of a Local Government Bill. And the Local Government Bill should contain a clause similar to that which twice passed through the Legislative Assembly of South Australia, viz., .a clause to enable the municipality to levy, if by vote they elect to do so, a tax upon the unimproved value of land—(cheers)—so that they would not tax the improver or put a penalty upon a man for building a house or cultivating his garden. (Cheers.) Such a clause would affirm the principle that whatever a man made by his hands or by his head should be his, and no tax should be levied upon it. (Cheers.) He trusted that the Local Government Bill would pass, and that when Mr McMillan delivered his financial sfcatementibwould befound that he had embodied in it, to some extent at least, the abolishing of Customs-houses and the imposition of a tax upon land values. (Cheers.) No matter how small the concession would be, it would be a beginning. They must creep before they could walk. If they would advance, it would have to be one step after another. But though steps might be short ones, yet as long as they were advancing, and were on the right track, every step taken brought the goal nearer, and every step taken was nob merely for their own people, but for all the peoples of the world—(cheers)—and most of all for the English-speaking race. Nob merely for their own children, bub for all the children of men. Each step taken would be for those little children who were festering, and hungering, and dying in the slums of London. Not merely for the victims like those poor sweated women of Melbourne, like the poor creatures who ought to be somebody’s wives that in the great centres of our Christian civilisation may be found after nightfall upon our streets—(hear, hear) —nob merely for them, but for all that is good and true, for all who trust freedom and follow her. ‘ Free trade, free land, free men ’ —that was the rallying cry of the single tax men of America. Let it be the cry of the sons of Australia. (Enthusiastic cheering.) He would leave Australia knowing that good heed had been sown, knowing that the reapers were among the corn, knowing that Australia was advancing.”