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Rashleigh, at 270 Post Office Place, and Published at 849 Collins Street, Melbourne. CONTENTS. Frontispiece - Peti tion to Parliament (see p. 52) Editorial Petition for Land Values Tax Farmers and the Single Tax .. 54 Where is the Money Gone? Jubilee of Protection 56 "The Safest Investments." The following is extracted from a letter of advice to British investors, written by the late Duke of Marlborough, after an extensive tour through the United States, and published in the "New York Herald":-" Breweries and stockyards and elevators are very fine things, so long as you can get them managed by local American Boards, who have strong share interest in them, but do not let us blind ourselves to the fact that you are really only buying goodwill, a four-walled factory, and a lot of beer barrels. The real value of America is in real estate, and in real estate I include not only such property as Middlesborough, but also CONTENTS. Current Accounts .. 57 Fiscal Fancies 59 59 English Labour Notes 60 61 all American railways in which you can hold an effective block of stock which will control the management. It is in this real estate of one form and another that future unearned increment of value lies. Breweries will vanish, but coal regions and railways will remain. You have an Anglo-Saxon race of sixty millions of people who work like beavers, developing your property, and adding to its value every day if you own real estate investments." How good of these sixty millions and of many other millions of the AngloSaxon race to work like beavers in order to add value to other people's property. What would happen to them if they were to keep the value which their work creates? Surely the consequences would be awful-to the Dukes. PETITION TO PARLIAMENT FOR A TAX ON LAND VALUES (See Page 52). Clocks: Guns and Ammunition. E. P. Ware and Cutlery. Typewriter, 349 COLLINS STREET. Copying of every description carefully executed. Shorthand Correspondence, German and French Translations. Moderate Charges. Instruction Given. LICENSED TO SELL STAMPS. THE PAPER OF THE PROVINCES. The Charlton Independent. A LIVE MEDIUM FOR LIVE ADVERTISERS. RHEINGOLD CIGARS ONE UNIFORM QUALITY. FRUIT TREES. FRUIT TREES. Charles J. Goodman, BAIRNSDALE, Begs to inform intending planters that he has for sale a Large Stock of Well Grown Of all the Leading Varieties. C.J.G. grows for several leading nurserymen in Melbourne and Sydney, which is a guarantee that his trees are well grown and true to name. Catalogues on Application. Wheeler & Wilson Sewing Machines. Spectator Publishing Co. Needles and Parts Reduced. LIMITED, GENERAL PRINTERS, IN THE COLONIES. LOLLIES. LOLLIES. CO-OPERATIVE CONFECTIONERY CO. WHOLESALE AND RETAIL. No. 1 EASTERN MARKET, BOURKE-ST., MELBOURNE. "The Waverley," THE MOST POPULAR LUNCHEON ROOMS IN THE CITY, 856 COLLINS STREET. A. B. WALLACE, Proprietor. 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The yearly subscription may commence at any time. Money Orders or 1d. and d. stamps preferred. Remittances and business communications to be addressed to THE MANAGER, Beacon Office, 349 Collins-street, Melbourne. The Beacon. "Where wages are highest, there will be the largest production and the most equitable dis tribution of wealth. There will invention be most active. and the brain guide best the hand. diffusion of knowledge, the purest morals, and the truest patriotism."-HENRY GEORGE (Pro There will be the greatest comfort, the widest tection or Freetrade). AUGUST 1ST, 1893. The political battle-field of Victoria is strewn with the lost reputations of her Treasurers. Mr. Gillies, the author of the notorious boom budgets, may possibly claim some consideration on account of the universal madness of the times, but his successors have not even this questionable excuse to offer. Mr. Munro stands self-confessed as lacking the courage to make the retrenchments and impose the taxation which he knew to be urgently required. Sir Graham Berry we fondly imagined to be the champion muddler in estimating the revenue at a figure which every outsider whose judgment is worth taking into account, declared at the time to be impossible of realisation; in imposing taxation which was equally certain to fall short, by at least one-half, of the revenue he expected from it. Even ordinary prudence would have suggested to Mr. G. D. Carter to avoid these pitfalls. That he has neglected this obvious warning, that he has fallen into exactly the same mistakes as his predecessor, shows that he is even more incompetent for the post absolute muddle-headedness rests with him. We sincerely hope that no future Treasurer will wrest it from his brow. The serious nature of the condition of our national finances demands the utmost candour. To neglect the equalisation of receipts and expenditure at the present time must either lead to national bankruptcy or to such heroic taxation in the near future, that it may well appal the most reckless. Yet this is the very time at which the Treasurer largely overestimates the possible revenue from existing sources, as well as from the new taxes which he proposes to levy. He proceeds on the assumption that the present year will witness a reversal of the existing decline in trade-a reversal which will not only prevent further reduction, but bring about an increase as compared with last year. Yet there is not the slightest indication of any such improvement. On the contrary, all indications, especially the returns from the Customs house, prove that the necessary readjustment of trade to our reduced capacity of consumption is still in progress, and far from completion. The latest official returns show that the imports of merchandise of the Port of Melbourne were as follows during the first half of the years mentioned: 1892. 1891. 1893. £7,458,904 .. £6,449,895 .. £3,984,389 Yet, in spite of this enormous and progressive decline, the Treasurer actually assumes that his receipts from Customs will be £110,000 more than during the last financial year. Similarly he estimates that probate duties will yield £190,000, or £7000 more than last year, when, as is well known, most estates paid probate on values which have almost entirely disappeared since. The railway estimate exhibits a similarly unfounded optimism. While the receipts amounted to £3,101,491 in 1891-2, and to £2,915,679 in 1892-3, it is assumed that they will rise to £3,100,000 during the coming financial year. We should think that the PRICE, 1D. expectation of stationary returns would demand a great deal of faith; that a revenue of £3,000,000 is almost impossible, but that £8,100,000 is an absolutely unjustifiable assumption. In a similar strain of optimism the probable expenditure of railways has been under-estimated by at least £150,000. In these three items alone, therefore, the over-statement amounts to at least £400,000, and probably to as much as £500,000. Without taking into account overestimates on minor items, as too unimportant to affect the issue, we arrive at the conclusion that the Treasurer's estimate of the probable deficit, stated at £280,762, falls short of its probable amount by about £450,000, and that the total deficit cannot well be less than £730,000. To meet this deficiency it is proposed to levy an income tax, varying in amount, and a primage duty of three per cent. on all imports, with a few exceptions. The receipts from these sources are estimated to realise £300,000 and £276,000 respectively. Even these estimates fall short of the revenue required; yet they are even more delusive than those already dealt with. As regards the income tax, the Treasurer's method is that of the schoolboy. The income tax realises so much per penny in the pound and head of population in New Zealand, consequently it will realise the same proportional amount here. That our circumstances, for the time being, differ from those of New Zealand as much as chalk does from cheese, is too small a matter for him to take into account. Yet that is the determinating factor. It is safe to say that the average income per head of our population will fall far short of that prevailing in New Zealand for at least some years to come, that therefore the exemption of £200 will bear a much greater proportion to the whole than in the island colony. He would be a sanguine man who would estimate the total net receipts from this source at more than £150,000, and the possibility is that not more than £100,000 will be realised, It is the same with the primage The Petition for a Land duty. This resulting revenue is calculated on an importation of goods liable to it, amounting to about £9,500,000. Yet it is safe to say that such imports will not exceed £8,000,000, and will probably fall short of £7,000,000. At the latter figure they would yield a gross return of £210,000, or say a net return of £200,000. Taking the revenue from income tax at the highest possible figure and adding to it that from primage duties, we therefore arrive at the conclusion that the total revenue from the new taxation proposed will yield £350,000, and will fall short of requirements by £380,000. As Mr. Carter figured out a surplus of £296,238, we are compelled to affirm that he has over-estimated the the total revenue by at least £675,000. We have frequently referred to the want of honesty and pluck in the conduct of our public affairs, to the cowardice which declines to look facts in the face and deal with them. Add to this a determination to avoid the taxation of realised wealth, especially the taxation of unearned wealth as represented in the unimproved value of land, and the failure of Mr. G. D. Carter to rise to the occasion is explained. His words were wise. "When taxation is unavoidable," he told the House, it should be levied on those best able to bear it." In pursuance of this policy he increases the price of the necessaries of life, and proposes a tax which will fall heavily on moderate incomes, and which, at least for a time, will be evaded by the wealthy classes. We hope Parliament will not hesitate to discard these inadequate and unjust proposals, and will impose instead the tax for which the country calls a tax on the unimproved value of land, sufficient to cover the deficiency of at least £700,000 and a little over for safety. A tax of one-half per cent on the capital value of land, exempting all improvements, will about cover the bill. Agricultural labourers at home seem to know more about the operation of the Corn Laws than does the " Age" newspaper. We clip the following from the "Western Times" of March 10th last :-"The Wilts agricul. tural labourers have held a large meeting to consider Lord Winchelsea's scheme. They were not adverse to it, but suspicious of its involving a proposal for Protection. They accordingly asked Lord Winchelsea whether the real thing aimed at was a tax on imported cereals, and if so, whether his Lordship would state how that tax would prove beneficial either to tenant farmers or to agricultural labourers." Values Tax. The men who have set their hearts on the reform of our revenue system have at last resolved upon a decisive and practical step. A petition, the text of which forms our frontispiece, is being circulated, and signed extensively, praying Parliament to derive required any additional revenue through a tax on the unimproved Secondly, they came to the conclu- and more progressive section of the Cabinet had failed to prevail upon their colleagues, and that an income tax, as well as additional Customs duties, had been decided upon. Upon the receipt of this news it was resolved to appeal to the country. A committee to draw up a petition to Parliament and collect signatures to the same, as well as to take other suitable steps, was appointed, and all existing political associations were requested to co-operate through delegates to this committee. This latter demand was but sparingly responded to. The Protectionist associations, the Trades Hall Council, and the Protection, Liberal, and Federation League scented an attack on Protection in the passage of the draft petition, which declared that no further taxes should be imposed on improvements and commodities. In vain was it pointed out to them that the committee had been anxious to prevent any attack on their favoured nostrum ; that this passage referred to the proposed duties on kerosene, tea, &c., and to primage duties; that according to their own contention, such duties are unjustifiable because they are taxes on commodities, while all Protectionists profess to believe that protective duties are not taxes on commodities. No notice was taken of this explanation; all co-operation was declined. The committee, therefore, coming to the conclusion that the Protectionist professions in favour of a tax on land values were mere pretence, due to the popularity of the measure, had reluctantly to proceed without this assistance. been issued, and after it already had As a consequence of their delibera-modities" be omitted from it. They pressed this amendment on the plea |