The theory that by If it were possible, by land question. In the providence of pieces.-Sir Hy. Maine. of the land is not even MELBOURNE AND SUBURBS. Malvern, S. Smedley; Middle Park, H. Corder; Montague, W. Hampton; Moonee Ponds, Mrs. Rhys-Jones. Newmarket, Summers Bros., A. Wrigley; Newport, P. Lynch; Northcote, J. Thomson, M. F. Ebbot. Parkville, E. Lyons & Son; Port Melbourne, Wm. Cross, Cross Bros.; Prahran, Fitzmaurice Bros., George, 298 Chapelstreet; T. W. Archer; J. Mitchell, High-street; J. Lewis, Chapel-st.; Preston, A. Robertson. Richmond, H. Warwick, 178 Bridge road; J. Lambert & Co., J. M. Barr, 101 Swanstreet; J. Fyfe, 103 Lennox-street; V. Azzoppardi, 284 Victoria-street; Richmond West, E. Bangs, 277 King-street; Miss Benson, 366 Church-street. St. Kilda-C. G. Bird, Tram Terminus; J. T. Webb, Junction; Mrs. Hart, T. Pratt, High-street; Mrs. Hogan, Railway Station; W. J. Haber, Fitzroy-street. South Yarra-W. Flintoff, James Hewitt, W. Cameron. Spottiswoode-S. Reed. Toorak-T. Bridgart, Worrell & Webb. Williamstown-F. H. Bolton, Cole-street; North, T. Rice. Windsor-T. Marvin. Yarraville-J. Palmer. COUNTRY. All Railway Bookstalls. Bacchus Marsh, Morton & Hussey; Bad- Dandenong, H. S. M. Ross; Daylesford, J. The yearly subscription may commence at any time. Money Orders or 1d. and d. stamps preferred. Remittances and business communications Office, 349 Collins-street, Melbourne. The Beacon. JULY 1ST, 1893. farmers," applies with infinitely greater truth to city occupations. We certainly cannot all be bootmakers, or clothing hands, or shopkeepers, and merchants. All city occupations are seen to be overcrowded, because the country population, for whose service they exist, has been artificially decreased. Frantic efforts are now being made to rectify the mistakes of the past. "Back to the land" is the cry which resounds through the country; which is heard at every meeting, and fills the to be addressed to THE MANAGER, Beacon newspapers in a variety of expressions. By the dozens may the schemes be counted which are intended to entice the people back to the land. Yet, whether it is for want of honesty or for want of perception, the question is never raised how it is that the people are not going on the land of their own accord. Nor is the more serious fact attended to, that those who have been settled on the land are abandoning the soil on which they have spent the labour of a life-time. "Where wages are highest, there will be the largest production and the most equitable distribution of wealth. There will invention be There will be the greatest comfort, the widest diffusion of knowledge, the purest morals, and the truest_patriotism."-HENRY GEORGE (Pro most active, and the brain guide best the hand. tection or Freetrade). JULY 1ST, 1893. As the prodigal son, in his extremity, turned to the home which nurtured him, so does Victoria, in her distress, turn for relief to the land. A generation has been sacrificed in the vain attempt to foster into premature manhood artificial industries which, in due time, would have arisen of themselves. The brain and the muscle of the people have been diverted into artificial and unproductive channels; their energies have been withheld, nay, have been withdrawn, from the development of the natural opportunities which surround us. Sweating dens have been substituted for farms, sickly factories for orchards, borrowing for producing, and the result is the total collapse from which we now suffer. The factories that might have been prosperous if they had grown up under natural conditions, with a numerous and well-to-do country population at their back, are insolvent, and the men and women who were lured into them find themselves cast adrift. It is now clear to the meanest understanding that the old cry, "We cannot all be All over the country, in every district, except the newly-discovered Mallee, farmers are abandoning their holdings. Everywhere the land is again aggregating in large estates; almost every where cultivation is being abandoned for grazing. Even of the district which is justly regarded as the garden of Victoria, where irrigation has been most successfully instituted -even of the Goulburn Valley-Mr. Murray reports that the subdivision of large holdings into fruit-farms is accompanied by an aggregation of 300acre holdings into grazing farms. What, therefore, is the use of establishing village settlements on small plots of poor land, or land remote from the arteries of communication, when the larger farms, more fruitful or more advantageously situated, cannot maintain the families who have devoted their energies to the cultivation of their soil? We are a nation of canters. With ostrich-like stupidity we refuse to look the facts in the face. Nothing can be more obvious than that our system of taxation renders it impossible for a PRICE, 1D. man of average ability and industry to make a living from the land; that, in spite of all the precautions to the contrary, our economic and fiscal mistakes are reconverting Victoria into a sheep and cattle walk. What possible success can, under these circumstances, be expected from the endeavour of settling on the land the artisans, shut out from the city occupations into which we seduced them? Are they likely to overcome the difficulties and burdens which are crushing out the farmers; or is it not a matter of absolute certainty that in a few years the majority of them will be compelled to throw up the sponge? Our farmers are driven off the land; hungry men perambulate the country in vain search of work which cannot be found; the streets of our city swarm with thousands who are in the same condition; our industries, protected and otherwise, are smitten with paralysis; our harbour is empty of ships and our trade at a standstill, and all we propose is to cut up a few acres of land into village settlements. It would be laughable if it were not so inexpressibly sad. There is one course, and one course only, which can bring back prosperity to our homes; which can bring work and food to the thousands which are now suffering from the want of it; which can keep our traders out of the bankruptcy courts; which can keep our farmers on the land and settle thousands of other farmers by their side. That is a policy which makes farming pay, by relieving it of the overwhelming burdens which we have heaped upon it in our vain attempts to foster city trades before their time. Are we lacking the honesty to confess, what is obvious to every eye, that the policy which we have called "protection" is a policy of destruction? Whom has it protected, if not the masses against getting wages? Not our manufacturers. With the exception of a few small trades, which linger on in a half-comatose state at an enormous cost to the country, none of our industries have benefited by it. Is there any man who can deny that our larger industries, our manufactures of agricultural implements and mining plants, our boot and clothing factories, our woollen mills would be more prosperous if we had not tried to coddle them into immature growth? Let us, then, honestly confess that the policy of taxing men according to the number of mouths which they have to feed, and the number of backs which they have to clothe; the policy which fines the masses of men for every addition which they make to the wealth of the country, has proved an utter failure. Instead of taxing the labour and the production of the people, let us tax the few who appropriate the wealth which the many produce by raising revenue from a tax on the rental value of all land, exempting improvements. That would make farming pay, and would, therefore, settle the people on the land. If once our farmers were relieved from the crushing duties on everything they have to buy; from the tax on their produce, which is represented by railway freights of double the amount of what they ought to be; from the iniquitous fine on all their improvements, which arises from the present system of local rating; if all this crushing taxation were replaced by a tax on the unimproved value of city and country land, their contribution to the general taxation, the wealth taken from their industry, would be very small. Our traders and manufacturers would then have at their back a vast army of prosperous cultivators, whose demand for manufactured goods would scatter prosperity into every street and corner of our city. All this cannot be done at once, but surely the time is ripe for a beginning. Every step in this direction, every real attempt to rectify the errors of the past, would bring its proportional measure of prosperity. All that is required is the pluck and the honesty to confess the mistakes we have made, to turn back upon the path which we have trodden so long and with such disastrous results. Unless we as a people possess that pluck and honesty our future is dark indeed, and deserves to be so. Our destiny is in our own hands; what it shall be depends upon our own acts. The time calls for reforms, not for tinkering. Fortunately we have every reason to hope that real reforms, bringing lasting prosperity in their train, will be the result of our disasters. The Railway of the Age. Our frontispiece presents a sketch of the Yarra Glen Railway Extension as advocated by the "Age" newspaper, and as nearly as the same can be located at present. A not inconsiderable section of local residents are of opinion that the line should start from Croydon, but as the "Age" declares that " there seems to be very little justice in such a proposal," it may be regarded as doomed. There certainly would be very little justice to Mr. David Syme in this proposal. For if it were adopted, the line would either avoid his land, or, what might be objected to, would have to make a considerable detour in order to pass through it. The total length of the line from Lilydale to Warburton will be about 19 miles. For the first eight miles of its course, as far as Seville, the expense will not be exceptionally heavy. The picturesque description in the "Age" of the natural beauties revealed during the remainder of its course, and the fact, which it mentions, that "owing to the hilly nature of the country, the carting of produce from the Upper Yarra to Lilydale is expensive work, often coming to £5 per ton," is, however, a sufficient guarantee that the balance will be restored by this section. An average of £16,000 per mile, or, say, £300,000 in all, will scarcely be an over-estimate of its cost. We gather from official statistics that the number of inhabitants to be served by the line amounts to the marvellous total of about 1300. This gives an expenditure of over £230 per head. It may therefore be estimated that the railway will pay if every one of the residents, babies included, will spend at least £20 a year in freights and fares. Should they, however, adopt the unpatriotic course of the rest of the people of Victoria, each of whom, on an average, spends only about £3 a year in this manner, then it may still be calculated that the earnings of this line will compensate the Department for the additional expenditure on axle grease which it will necessitate. We note, however, with satisfaction that the "Age" discovers the land through which the line passes to be "rich and adaptable for any purpose," and that "some thousands of acres are "under cultivation for the raspberry cane." We were not aware that the cultivation of raspberries was carried on so extensively as to require "some thousands of acres" in this small district alone, and we scarcely suspected the people of Victoria to be possessed of such a voracious appetite for this luscious fruit. The obligatory cream is, of course, supplied by the reporter's little joke. The discovery, on the other hand, that Mr. David Syme's land is neither rich nor adapted for this remunerative industry, excites our sympathetic regret. The landtax register shows that this land is placed in the lowest, the fourth, class, and that its contribution to the revenue amounts to £6 8s. a year. It is true the "Age " mentions that, "Half-way between Woori Yallock and Launching Place the road lies along the valley of the Yarra, where the rich river flats furnish grazing and agricultural land that it would be impossible to surpass in any part of the colony," and also that, "all over the district | there is land lying idle which should be utilised." But, though the situation of Mr. David Syme's land corresponds with that described in the first of these passages, the low value at which it is assessed seems to exclude the possibility of its being thus referred to. Mr. Syme's reputation as a Land Nationaliser, and the condemnation by the "Age" of landowners who keep their land idle, seems to make it equally unlikely that the second passage refers to it. We are, therefore, forced to conclude that this land is poor in quality, unadapted and unadaptable for any very useful purpose. We, therefore, are all the more ready to congratulate Mr. David Syme on the good fortune in store for him through the increase in the value of his poor land from the unexpected construction of a railway. It is gratifying to find that the patriotism with which he has combated political influence in the construction of railways-a patriotism which has subjected him to two great libel actions-at last brings its own reward. Had he been less urgent in the cause of purity, had he protested less against this too prevalent type of corruption, ill-natured persons might have suggested that the advocacy of this line in the pages of the "Age," and its favourable consideration by the Government, were due to the fact that it must put money into the pockets of Mr. David Syme. In order, however, to place such a suggestion in its proper light, and to exhibit the strong objection held by Mr. David the value of the terminal points on Syme to this immoral misuse of politi-Farmers and the Single which the various lines converge. cal influence, we will quote a few only of the many condemnations which his newspapers have passed on it: "How such lines came to be authorised is no mystery to those who have watched the operations of the octopus system. A land syndicate or a coterie of landed proprietors get hold of one or more members of Parlia ment and through them push on the attention of the Minister of Railways a scheme of railway extension calculated to enhance the value of the promoter's property."-Sep tember 13th, 1890. "The anxiety of landowners to get State railways constructed in the vicinity of their property is not to be wondered at when they thus secure a double gain. The land they retain is enormously increased in value when the railway is constructed."-February 28th, 1891. "It is evident that the railway authorities regarded railway construction as a mere process of bribery. Certain persons who had political influence had to have their lands improved at the public expense, and others had slices of land to sell to the State at ten times their value."-March 21st, 1891. The Gippsland instance of spending solitary instance of political favouritism, but a recognised method of conciliating political support."-January 4th, 1893. money unnecessarily on railways was not a "Is it to be wondered at that the credit of the colony should have suffered severely, when it is pointed out that, on the one hand, directors of financial institutions can distribute amongst the shareholders-principally amongst the directors themselves some come out of the deposits; and that, on the other hand, the Government permits the money borrowed under the national sanction for reproductive works to be expended on purely political railways?"-January 4th, £100,000 never earned, and which must have 1893. The Secretary of the Protection Protecting League is again distinguishing himself in the columns of the "Age," his attempt to extinguish the Single Taxers being mainly remarkable for his inability to distinguish unimproved land from the unimproved value of land. Such incapacity is not strange in a gentleman who only a few months ago de clared that men who advocate the taxation of land values are a hundred years before their time. Nor is it strange to find this gentleman quote with approval the very proposal which the "Age" has just abandoned -that of taxing unimproved land. It is the fate of some men to be always behind the times; to always marry themselves, so to speak, to a corpse. In their endeavour to advocate only what is popular to-day, they forget that there is a to-morrow. Mr. Maugher also assumes that his chosen allies, the protected members of the Employers' Union, from whom he confessedly derives the funds for his agitation, are land value taxers, and asserts that the Single Taxers only pose as land reformers. These items are of sufficient interest to our readers to induce us to repub. lish them, though we naturally decline to guarantee their truth. It is, however, ungrateful of Mr. Maugher to publish them, seeing that what little knowledge of land taxation has been forced into his unreceptive mind, is due to the teaching of the Single Tax League. Tax. III. In our last issue we placed before farmers a detailed account of the amounts, averaging 12s. 11 d. per acre, of which they are deprived every year through the system of Customs duties, facetiously called Protection. We now proceed to place before them a similarly detailed account of the influence upon their prosperity of the existing system of excessive railway charges. The present interest charge on the cost of construction of our railroads amounts to £1,250,000, or to about one half of the expenses, which have to be met out of the earnings of railways. The necessity to earn this sum, in addition to working expenses, therefore compels us to charge at least double the rates of freights that would be needed if this charge were other wise provided for, and working exthe whole of this burden is placed on penses alone had to be earned. Nearly the shoulders of our farmers. They consume the bulk of the goods which the railways carry up country, and their produce provides the bulk of the freight to town. The city merchant charges all freight expenses to his country customer, who again charges it to the farmer or other consumer, with profits added thereto, in the higher price of goods. The farmer again pays the freight on his produce, for the price which he receives for the same declines in the ratio of its disstance from Melbourne. But the owners of city properties, who gain most by the construction of railroads, contribute absolutely nothing to their cost. The present value of Melbourne city land is as much derived from the construction of railways as is that of a squatter's run or a farmer's selection. The imposition of a rate on all land values, for the purpose of providing interest on the construction account of railways, is therefore in accordance with precedent and involves no injustice, provided we avoid the error committed in our Local Government Act, of rating the value of improvements as well as that of land. If the land alone is assessed, the rate will fall in exact conformity with the additional value conferred upon the land by the building of railways. City land would contribute most, in strict accordance with the high value which the railways confer upon it; valuable land in the vicinity of cities and towns, mostly used for sheep grazing, would bear its just proportion, while land in the back blocks, remote from railways, and therefore of little value, would contribute but little. in private possession, all improveRoughly speaking, the value of land ments being deducted, may be taken to amount to £120,000,000, of which about £70,000,000 is the value of land in cities and boroughs, and £50,000,000 the value of land in shires. Of the latter, land values in squatting and mining properties amount to about £32,000,000, while the value of bare land in the possession of farmers does not exceed £18,000,000. A rate of 3d. in the pound of capital value would therefore yield a revenue of £1,500,000, of which cities and boroughs would provide £875,000; valuable squatting and other properties, £400,000; while farmers' contributions would amount to less than £250,000. The farmers would be benefited by nearly the entire reduction in freights, amounting to £1,250,000, while they would contribute only £250,000, or less in rates. revenue, moreover, would be benefited at once to the extent of £250,000, and the increasing value of land, consequent on the construction of new railways, would instantly provide the additional interest on the cost of these railways. The We, like all other civilised nations, have long since recognised the folly of charging to those who use them the cost of constructing and maintaining the public roads. We defray this expenditure out of local rates, because the land of the locality is enhanced in value by more than this expenditure amounts to. Railroads do not differ from common roads, either in their character or in their influence on land values. The same principle In order to still more clearly exhibit therefore applies to them, and the the influence of the change on the ininterest on the cost of their construc- | dividual farmer, we will take the case of tion should be raised in a similar manner. They enhance the value of the land through which they pass, and they enhance to a much larger extent a farm situated about 180 miles from Melbourne, and comprising 320 acres, of which 200 acres are under the plough and 120 in grass. Let the |