FLETCHER, CHESTER & CO. GROCERS, WINE AND SPIRIT MERCHANTS, ITALIAN WAREHOUSEMEN, 69 & 71 ELIZABETH STREET, MELBOURNE. ACCIDENTS WILL NOTICE TO HOLDERS OF GUARDIAN HAT COUPONS. On application, personally or by letter, I am prepared to quote SPECIALLY REDUCED RATES OF PREMIUM To those wishing to increase the amount of their insurance. State No. of Coupon, and where purchased. Agents wanted throughout the colony. Guardian Accident & Guarantee Insurance Co. of Australasia Ltd. 29 QUEEN STREET, MELBOURNE. ARTHUR EARL LEWIS, GENERAL MANAGER. BURNLEA NURSERY, HORSHAM. L. FORSTER & SON A splendid stock of Fruit Trees raised on the most approved stocks. has them. I have a splendid supply of Cuttings of the celebrated Almeria Vine at 1s. each. The "Almeria" is the grape of Spain for export purposes. No other nurseryman in the colony JAMES CLEMENTS. PEOPLE. THE LAND FOR THE WHOLESALE & RETAIL Saddle, Collar, & Harness Manufacturers 288 POST OFFICE PLACE, MELBOURNE, Carriage and Buggy Harness on Hand or to LITERATURE. Genuine Settlers requiring Homes in New South Wales should communicate at once with Mr. Frank Cotton, M.L.A., Hay Irrigation Settlement Office, 39 Castlereagh Street, Sydney. The Hay Irrigation area comprises 25,000 acres of magnificent alluvial soil, specially dedicated by Act of Parliament for Irrigation purposes. Title, perpetual leasehold; all rents to be paid into a trust fund, and expended in permanent improvements upon irrigation area for the general benefit of the Settlers. All particulars Free Trade and Land Value Taxation. furnished on application to FRANK COTTON, M.L.A., 89 Castlereagh Street, Sydney. "DON" and PHOENIX are the BEST BRANDS. VOL. II., No. 7. MELBOURNE, NOVEMBER 1ST, 1894. BUSINESS ANNOUNCEMENTS. of the Ministry as to those of the Communications to the Editor must be written on one side of the paper only, and must be accompanied by a signature, not necessarily for publication. Matter which does not reach the office before the 25th of the month cannot be inserted in the following number. SUBSCRIPTION RATES. Throughout Australasia, one copy, 2s. 6d. per an num, post free. In Victoria, two copies to UNE address, two copies, 58.; three copies, 73. 6d. Four copies to 4. 3d.; three copies, 6s. 4d. In the other Colonies, ONE address in any of the Colonies, 8s. 6d. On more than four to ONE address-to each 2s. per copy subscription Id. extra must be added for postage. To Great Britain, one copy, 38., and to U.S.A., 75c. per annum, post free. The Yearly subscription may commence at any time. Postal notes or stamps preferred. tion for them is advisable. Remittances and business communications to be addressed to THE MANAGER, Beacon Newspaper country. In reviewing the measures promised by the Government, we will divide them into those which deserve unhesitating approbation, those which deserve an equal disapprobation, and those which are either of doubtful utility in themselves or through the manner in which it is proposed to carry them out. The following measures may be placed in the first category:-The establishment of a Committee of Accounts to independently report to Parliament on all expenditure; the vesting of the Trust Funds in a non-political board; the new system of retrenchment, and the reduction in the salaries of Ministers, members, and future Governors; the proposals Co. Ltd., Mercantile Chambers, 349 Collins-street, to resume railway construction to Melbourne. The Beacon. "Where wages are highest, there will be the largest production and the most equitable distribution of wealth. There will invention be most active, and the brain guide best the hand. There will be the greatest comfort, the widest the truest_patriotism."-HENRY GEORGE (Pro diffusion of knowledge, the purest morals, and tection or Freetrade). NOVEMBER 1ST, 1894. The programme of the new Government has now been before the country for some weeks, and has given rise to many hopes and fears. Taking it as a whole, it undoubtedly shows that the colony has made some progress in the direction of democracy; that this progress has been recognised by the new Government, and that it has honestly tried to keep pace with it, as far as the heterogeneous nature of its composition would admit. There, however, lies the rub. It seems to us that the more advanced members of the Ministry must themselves feel that their programme is stamped with the fatal taint of hesitancy; that for every two steps forward there is one backward, and that this hesitancy is as much opposed to the interests PRICE, 2D. It is equally regrettable that the formation of a Credit Foncier is to be delayed until a Parliamentary Committee has reported on the same. To wait until the horse is stolen, before locking the stable doors, is nowhere regarded as a wise proceeding. Yet, unless our distressed farmers are rescued from the hands of the money lenders at once, most of them will have left the country before the Committee has closed its enquiry. If a workable scheme-a scheme which really will give cheap money to those who want it most-can be elaborated, it ought to be done at once, or it will come too late. We strongly recommend the Government to alter its decision in this respect, and to proceed with this measure on its own responsibility. It also seems to us that the circuma limited degree; the amendment stances of the country urgently deof the company law, and above all, mand the funding of the accrued the measures which will give fixity of deficits. As a rule, we are strongly tenure to the sorely harrassed mallee opposed to any addition to the national farmers, and which will place the debt. But the country is not at Electoral Act on a more just footing present in a condition to stand by removing the glaring injustice per- additional taxation, such as the expetrated by the infamous Purification tinction of the accrued deficit, howof Rolls Act. All these measures have ever gradual, would necessitate. Not been repeatedly advocated by the only will such an attempt be misBeacon, and will undoubtedly be sup-chievous in its results; it is also cerported by large majorities. tain to break down, and any such failure would injure our credit abroad and delay the return of normal business activity. On the other hand, the establishment of a State Bank is a measure which will be hotly contested. It is difficult to see what it means exactly. Is it that the State shall merely take over the issue of notes? In that case no possible gain can accrue in any direction, which could not be achieved with greater safety by raising the tax on bank notes from 2 to 3 per cent. If, on the other hand, it is contemplated to establish a State Bank of deposit as well as issue-one which will do ordinary banking business the doors will be opened to bribery, corruption, and ultimate disaster. In either case it is to be regretted that the Ministry should have proposed a measure, the dangerous nature of which is established by the experience of all countries. But Among the doubtful measures, the tax on the unimproved value of land claims particular attention. It would be idle to conceal that we are gratified by the unhesitating way in which the Government has accepted the verdict of the country in favour of this method of raising revenue. this is all. The Government has failed to understand that a large section of the people regards it as something very much more important than merely one out of two or three rival systems of taxation. It is this failure to understand the social character of the measure which has led the Ministry to couple it with an income tax; to propose exemptions, PHOENIX TOBACCO has no Rival for Flavour. and to add it to the existing burdens of taxation, instead of substituting it for some of them. No such exemptions were advocated at the elections, and the substitution of this tax for existing burdens was advocated everywhere. We therefore are compelled to utterly repudiate the measure in the form in which it is proposed. That it will be brought before Parliament, is gratifying to us, because it will give rise to discussion and education; but we hope that Parliament will be wiser than the Ministry, and will either improve the measure or refuse to carry it. The resuscitation of the Tariff Board is another measure of doubtful character. No doubt this Board might do some good, if either its members were desirous to elicit the truth, or if it was composed of an equal number of Protectionists and Free Traders. The Government had the opportunity to nominate an equal number from each party. Apparently they have chosen to offer seats to determined Protectionists alone, with the sole exception of Mr. Harper, who is, at best, but a doubtful Free Trader. The intention, therefore, manifestly is to prevent an honest enquiry being made, and to continue the brow-beating and shunting of Free Trade witnesses, for which the old Board has become notorious. The reduction in the number of members is a measure which ought to be approached with the greatest caution. No doubt our Assembly is large for the number of the people, and there is every reason to believe that localism would be less prevalent if the constituencies were larger. On the other hand, however, there is a danger that larger constituencies may become too expensive to contest for candidates of ordinary means, and that the seats in the Legislative Assembly may be converted into sinecures for money-bags, as has been the case with those in the Legislative Council. Nor must it be forgotten that even with present members, a few men have virtually held the fate of Ministries in the palm of their hands, and these occasions might arise more frequently, and might become systematised in a smaller House. How to steer clear of the dangers which beset this measure on either side will task the best powers of the Government and the Legislature. toms, and which owes its position in the Governmental platform to his urgency. Mr. Best is young and sanguine, and his efforts to realise this dream will do him good, and will do the country no harm. But as to success-that is quite another matter. Are we prepared to let the stock tax go? If not, how can we expect New South Wales to consent to receive our agricultural produce free of duty? That is the lion in the path, which makes it unlikely that even so small a measure as the free exchange of natural products will be carried. And as to the larger project, the Australasian Customs Union, as well might Mr. Best promise the moon to the manufacturers, who admit that Protection, while shutting out foreign goods, has also shut in theirs, and keeps them stewing in their own juice. No doubt they would like a wider market for their goods. New South Wales will offer it them next year on the same terms as it offers it to its own manufacturers, viz., a free field and no favour. That, however, is not what Mr. Best's friends want. They don't care for the free field, they want the favours; the favours being that they shall be permitted to rob the people of New South Wales as they are robbing us. This we have every reason to believe is not a proposal which either the Government or the people of New South Wales are prepared to swallow, and hence friends, the protected manufacturers, will not have opened to them this escape door from the throttling influ ence of their own system. Our The surprise of the Ministerial programme has been the adoption of one adult one vote. We are unhesitatingly in favour of such a measure being carried-after due agitation in the country. But as a surprise we object to it, as we do to all surprises of a serious kind. Let us have one man one vote first, and then we can approach the larger measure. As it is, the latter seems to have been proposed in order to block the way to the former, and not with any hope of carrying it. We repeat there is much to like and much to dislike in the proposals which the Government intends to lay before Parliament. It is not a weak programme, and it is not a strong one The situation, however, urgently Intercolonial Free Trade is a requires strong men and a strong promeasure which seems to have fairly gramme. Nothing else will save fascinated the Minister of Cus- the country from disaster and the Ministry from defeat. Victoria is like the Sphinx. Of every Ministry which comes along, she requires the solution of a riddle; of the riddle, how it is that in a country favoured by nature as ours is, inhabited by a race like ours, poverty and want prevail from one end to the other. Past Ministries-the Gillies, Shiels', and Patterson's-have failed to solve the riddle, and the Sphinx has killed them outright, never again to rule in the land. We very much fear that the Turner Ministry is exposing itself to the same fate through the hesitancy arising from divided counsels. The Governmental proposal for the imposition of a tax on the unimproved value of land is disfigured by two blots which rob it of its main value, as the initiation of a social reform, and, therefore, make it unacceptable by any man who understands the significance of such a tax in that direction. These are, first, that it is proposed to enforce the tax on the unimproved value of land as an addition to present taxation, and without any reduction in the existing tax burdens; and second, the proposal to exempt land, the unimproved value of which is £500 or less. to tax land values in preference to The moral right of the community other things, arises from the fact that the former are not produced by their necessities of the people and of the owners, but are the result of the necessities of the people and of the progress of society. It does not matter whether the unimproved value of a man's land is £10, or £100,000; it always has the same origin, is due to the same cause. To exempt the value of any land from the tax, therefore, is a departure from principle, and converts a measure of justice into one of injustice. It proposes to let the small thief escape, which, though less revolting than the existing practice, which ensures the escape of the big thief, is yet not in accord with the moral conceptions of the community. We say it proposes to do so, but it utterly fails to accomplish this purpose. The following table, compiled from the tax register of South Australia, proves this fact to demonstration :- LAND TAX REGISTER OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA, 1892. Land values, £32,256,404. Revenue, at 1d. in £, £134,400. No. of men over 21 years, 84,319. Land tax payers, 40,277. SMOKE PHOENIX AROMATIC TOBACCO. own Land Would Av'rage worth, unimprovd pay, at ldper Who Land tax payers. Tax payer. From To in £. £ 3/4 6/4 2,904 12/6 3,056 20/10 6,756 33/1 £16,552, or 10/11 If the exemptions are revenue. made, the sugar duties must remain. If the exemptions are discarded, the sugar duty can be abolished. The average farmer's family consumes rather more than five bags of sugar, the price of which is increased through the duty to the extent of 6s. per bag. The poorer landowners, therefore, would be exempted to the average extent of 10s. 11d., and this exemption would cost them at least 30s. It is not P'rentge suggested that the wealthy landowner consumes more sugar than the poorest; and the absentee landowners consume none that has paid any revenue to our Government. Say the average payment of sugar tax by wealthy landowners is also 30s. per family, then the exemptions from the land tax will benefit each wealthy landowner to the average extent of 11s. 8d. a year, and will actually injure each one of the poorer landowners to the average extent of 19s. 1d., the injury being the greater the less land-values they possess. per head Revenue proved 30,164 16,552 10/11 12.4 % value up to £500. Total loss of revenue, £37,620, or 28% This table shows that 30,164 poor men would benefit to the extent of £16,652 by the proposed exemption, while 10,000 rich men would save £21,068 between them; that the poorer class of landowners, numbering three-fourths of the whole, would be benefited by the exemption to the average extent of 10s. 11d. only; these exemptions ranging from 2d. or 3d., to 41s. 8d., and, in the vast majority of cases, not exceeding 7s. 6d. The wealthier landowners, those possessing more than £500 worth of unimproved land values, who number only onefourth of the whole body, would, on the other hand, be relieved of a payment of 41s. 8d. each. This in itself is a somewhat startling result of a proposal made ostensibly for the benefit of the poor man. But its aspect becomes worse when it is recollected that any reduction in the land tax revenue must be compensated for by the continuance of Customs duties. The "Age" itself admits that "Customs duties fall with greater severity upon the poorer classes than upon the wealthy." Looked at from this point of view, the case for exemptions stands Nor must another matter be overlooked. It is understood to be the intention of the Government to regard a mortgagee as part owner of the land, and to empower the landtax payers to deduct a proportionate amount of the land tax from the mortgage interest. It is a notorious fact that, both in town and country, the smaller properties are more heavily mortgaged than the larger ones, and that valuable city properties are now practically free of mortgages. In exempting the smaller properties from the operation of the land value tax, it is, therefore, not so much the poor man, the owner, as the wealthy man, the mortgagee, who is exempted. The poor mortgaged owner continues to pay the full tax on sugar, in order that the mortgagee may escape the payment of a land tax. The above facts will effectually dispose of the contention that exemptions benefit the poor man. Nothing ever can benefit the poor man but the enforcement of strict justice. Every departure from true principles has always been, and always will be, at his expense. These exemptions are, however, equally objectionable in other respects. If all the land is taxed, the assessors and collectors need not trouble to find out the owners. It is a tax on the value of land, and not on the owners of land. As soon as ex emptions are made, it becomes necessary to find out the owners of any property to be exempted, in order to ascertain whether he does not possess other land as well. This makes the tax expensive to collect, and opens the door to the utmost corruption. One thing is quite certain. Banks and mortgage companies, with thousands of properties on their hands, will pu them in the names of dummies, each holding less than £500 worth of land, and they will thus escape paying the tax on hundreds of thousands worth of land. Yet this is the land which is held absolutely out of use, and which, therefore, ought to be taxed before all other land. The worst evil resulting from exemptions, however, is, that they will destroy the wage-increasing influence of a tax on land values. Such a tax exerts its greatest influence in reducing the amount of earned increment which the landowners can hope to reap in the future. It is the expectation of the future rise un in the value of land which induces men to keep land out of use or full use, and which, therefore, is responsible for scarcity of employment and low wages. The imposition of a uniform tax on land values not only reduces the future increase in value which the owner can reap, but it also provokes the fear that subsequent augmentations of the tax will still further reduce this unearned advantage. Consequently, such a tax discourages idle land holding, and induces owners to use their land to best advantage, or to sell it to those who will. If, however, any exemptions are made, this advantage is sacrificed. The landowners then know that whenever they chose to cut up their land in properties of £500 of unimproved land values or less, they will reap the whole of the unearned increment. Consequently the inducement to sell or use to best advantage is not created, and the most valuable result of a tax on land values is sacrificed. Whether it is yet time for the Government to take these facts into consideration, we do not know. But we trust that the land taxers in the House will make a firm stand in Committee, and that they will prevail on the Government to accept amendments which will vastly improve their measure. If, however, the Government should prove to be obstinate, we trust that no real land taxer will hesitate to register his vote against them. PHOENIX CUT TOBACCO UNEQUALLED. Free Trade is the opposite to slave trade. Mr. Lyght writes from Coleraine district: The shearers on strike have formed a camp here. I visited them to-day; found them a rather fine, intelligent body of men, and all land taxers." Our local militiamen object to pauper military officers being imported from England, on the ground that the work could be done at lower salaries by Victorians than by the pauper labour of Britishers. We wonder whether any of the woollen manufacturers know anything about the £13,000 worth of cotton and of the shoddy imported into the colony in 1892. Perhaps they got into the locally-made woollens The only thing that can kill State without their knowledge. socialism-the Single Tax. Prosperity founded on loss of liberty is delusive. No true prosperity can be based on anything but equal freedom. The New Zealand Bill for exempting improvements from municipal rating has been thrown out by the Upper House. Do not forget that the unimproved value of land in Victoria is £150,000,000, and that a tax of 1d. in the £1 would bring in £625,000. The land values belong to the people. Keep this in mind, whatever be the political expedient of the moment. We trust no reliance will be placed by any land reformers in the statements contained in the "Age" leader, of the 3rd ult., as to the incidence of the New Zealand land tax. The article is a series of inaccuracies. I should myself deny that the mineral treasures under the soil of a country belong to a handful of surface proprietors in the sense that this gentleman appeared to think they did (i.e., to do with as he pleased).Lord Coleridge. In England, 38,000,000 people pay 18,000 landlords for the right to live on their native Let Victoria repudiate the ignoble theory soil. Twenty individuals own about 4,582,910 that vicious laws are the necessary foundaacres. And yet we do not find it reads, "The tion of national welfare. earth hath He given to some' of the children of men." We invite correspondents from the country to state the effect of the tariff and land monoply in their respective districts, and shall also be glad to receive suggestions as to the possibility of organising circles of workers for the purpose of distributing literature and organis. ing lectures. At last. The "Leader," of October 20th, in answer to a correspondent, states: "The tax on unimproved land values will press more heavily on town lands than on country lands, save where the land is held in large areas and not turned to profitable occupation." tax on Murphy lost his seat because he broke his The drift of the people's party (in U.S.) A radical reform has been carried through on the estates of one of the wealthiest landowners in Germany, the Prince of Furstenberg, who owns a large part of the Black Forest in the States of Baden and Wurtem berg. The Prince intends to give Single Tax a fair trial, and the magnitude of his socialpolitical experiments can only be appreciated when we remember that the tenants on his estates number more than five thousand."The Single Tax." "Is it not an appalling and horrible thought that the vast majority of Britons have absolutely no legal right to anything whatsoever on the soil of Britain? That they are in everything at the mercy of a handful of landlords? Does it not make us pause and ask in horror whether these things are so? Does it not give us qualms of conscience to think we ourselves have acquiesced so long and so tamely in so horrible a system of injustice and cruelty?"-Grant Allen. Agriculture is being gradually squeezed out in Victoria, and the land is reverting to pasture in large estates. An estimate of the exodus of farmers from their lands from 1881 up to the end of 1893 showS approximately that 5735 have left their farms, chiefly in the counties of Bendigo, Gladstone, Kara Kara, Ripon, and Talbot, averaging 250 acres each, and aggregating a total area of 1,433,750 acres, while, at the rate of five persons to each settler's family, this means a total depopulation of 28,675.-" Age," 29th September, 1894. In condemnation of Monte Carlo gambling an essay dealing with the public saloons, Grant Allen concludes thus: "Whoever allows red herrings like these to be trailed across the path of his moral consciousness, to the detriment of the scent which should lead him straight on to the lairs of gigantic evils, deserves little credit either for conscience or sagacity. My son, be wise. Strike at the root of the evil. Let Monte Carlo go, but keep a stern eye on London ground-rents." Mr. Hollinsworth, of Edgbaston, has recently presented to the corporation of Birmingham a freehold, which ten years ago was reckoned to be worth nearly £5000. In his letter, conveying the property to its new owners, he says that he is especially averse to private property in land, and that he is glad to take this opportunity (one of the the property at the absolute disposal of the leases expired at Christmas last) of placing council, with the hope that the step may tend to augment the municipal property, and common weal.-"Personal Rights." ultimately be of some material benefit to the We record with deep regret the death of Mr. B. T. Annear, which took place in Bendigo on the 12th last. The late Mr. Annear had been for many years an ardent worker in the Single Tax and Labour cause in Bendigo, and his untimely death leaves & void which will not be easily filled. Efforts are being made to induce Henry George to stand for Mayor of New York, in the interest of the honest administration of the city's funds. The policy of "boodle," so long pursued by the "ring" which governs New York, has roused determined opposition once more, and the honest citizens are anxious to secure Henry George for the work of cleaning their "Augeas" stable. Whether the movement is strong enough to succeed, and whether Mr. George will accept the position, are as yet open questions. PHOENIX AROMATIC AND DARK TOBACCO. |