The following resolutions have been passed unanimously with enthusiasm at the Horsham Branch of the Australian Natives' Association :

That the Horsham Branch of the A.N.A. respectfully requests the board of directors to urge upon the Government the necessity of reducing railway freights and fares fifty per cent., and of imposing a tax of 3d. in the £ on the unimproved value of land, to make up the deficiency.

That a committee of three be appointed to draw up a circular for submitting the matter to all branches of the Association in the colony, asking their co-operation.

The Banyeno correspondent of the "St. Arnaud Mercury," writes:-" Our wheatgrowing prospects are not very cheering, in

New Zealand

has apparently jumped with both feet into the wildest State socialism. Two Bills now pending are especially of a startling character. One is called "The Undesirable Immigrants Exclusion Bill," and aims at excluding contract workmen, paupers, habitual drunkards, persons suffering from tuberculosis, leprosy, who may become a charge on the public funds, or who have committed an offence punishable in New Zealand with twelve months' imprisonment. Tourists are not excluded, but are admitted for six months only, unless their ticket-of-leave is extended. Paupers are any unmarried person not possessed of £20 in goods and money, or any married person not so possessed of £30, and £10 additional for every child. No person will be permitted to land unless the shipmaster

EXEMPTIONS

pereon suspected by any jack-in-office of having committed an offence under the Act, has to supply proof of his innocence, and no witness is entitled to refuse a reply to any question on the plea that it might incriminate himself. The Bill is to be retrospective, and to apply to all offences committed, or suspected to have been committed, subsequent to January 1st, 1869. Any man, therefore, who at any time during the last twenty-five years has been suspected of an offence, may now be punished by law, unless he can establish his innocence.

That such Bills will become law in a British community may well be doubted. But that a Ministry could seriously propose such Bills to the legislature, is a startling sign of the decadence of the people of New Zealand. They are sacrificing one by one

JUSTICE

view of the surplus of 16,000,000 bushels of wheat now being grown, over the total of the world's consumption. A further drop in prices is almost inevitable, and this would simply annihilate the Victorian wheat growing farmer, who is at his wit's end to know how to make both ends meet now, being compelled through the sheer force of circumstances to grow wheat at the present unremunerative price. I apprehend an exodus of the bone and sinew of our colony over the Murray into New South Wales, where a liberal Land Act is now promised. The business portion of the community, as a matter of course, will have to follow in their wake; auctioneers and commission agents will probably remain to share the spoil with the money-lending usurers." Hurrah for Protection!

Smoke

certifies to some twenty questions about him, and if the answers are subsequently found to have been incorrect, penalties are enforced, even extending to the seizure of the ship.

The position of shipowners or masters carrying passengers to New Zealand is thus made most arduous. They will have to employ a regular staff of examiners, doctors, and detectives, who must cross-examine every intending passenger, examine his health, and find out his previous history.

This interference with the freedom of intending settlers in New Zealand is, however, excusable, compared with the slavery which it is intended to inflicted on New Zealanders themselves by the other Bill referred to, viz., "The Distillation Act Amendment Bill." Under this, any

the liberties which their forefathers won at the expense of life and limb, and are establishing the worst despotism in their midst in the vain hope that it will prove benevolent and beneficial.

What strange things may be done in a socalled democratic country, by men of influence, has again been exemplified during the past month. A certain Mr. Richardson, in the absence of the Minister of Railways, sneaked into his office, destroyed a number of documents belonging to the Railway Department and State, and stole therefrom a certain book, which he asserted was his property. As a matter of fact, the book had been paid for out of the funds of the department. Both the destruction of documents and the theft of the book are criminal acts. If any ordinary

member of the democracy had committed them, he would undoubtedly have been arrested and put into the dock. If any reader doubts this, let him go and try. Yet because the man committing these daring outrages once held the office of Minister, he is let off scot-free; just as he was let off on a former occasion, when he was found guilty of actions which were characterised by his own subsequent colleague, Sir James Patterson, in these words:" Men have been sent to gaol in this colony for acts like these." We boast that all citizens are equal before the law. We label ourselves a democratic community, and yet no protest is raised when those entrusted with the administration of the law confine their attention to the small fry, and let the big fish escape.

Professor Thorold Rogers, in his celebrated work on wages and labour in the feudal days, made a remarkable statement in about these words: "Three hundred and fifty years ago a skilled mechanic, in order to supply himself and family, consisting of four other persons, with food, clothing, and shelter, worked 16 weeks in a year, six days a week of eight hours each. The unskilled labourer, in order to procure the same degree of comfort, had to work 25 weeks."

Five years ago it was calculated by political economists and leading thinkers, that the skilled mechanics of this day, in order to surround themselves with the same comfort as the skilled mechanics of 350 years ago, would have to work 56 weeks in the year, six days in the week, and 10 hours per day; that the unskilled labourer, in order to reach the same degree of comfort, would have to work 75 weeks, six days a week and 10 hours per day. In other words, it is impossible for the mechanics and unskilled labourers of this day, by working three times as long, to bring about the results of 350 years ago. The fact is, that in these centuries, despite the added productiveness of labour through invention, its ability to supply itself with the ordinary necessities and comforts of life is decreasing every year, and has never done so more rapidly than within the last six months, despite the cheapening of goods and commodities caused by the panic.

"National Economist."

The following letter was sent by Mr. George, in response to an enquiry from the "Chicago Times" :

TO THE EDITOR-This whole great organised labour movement is on a wrong line-a line on which no large and permanent success can possibly be won. Trades' unions, with their necessary weapon, the strike, have accomplished something, and may accomplish something; but it is very little, and at great cost. The necessary endeavour of the strike to induce or compel others to stop work, is in its nature war, and, furthermore, it is war that must necessarily deny a fundamental principle of personal liberty- the right of every man to work, when, where, for whom, and for what, he pleases. But above the wrongs which strikes involve, there is a deeper, wider wrong, which must be recognised and asserted if the labour movement is to obtain the moral strength that is its due. It is the great denial of liberty to work which provokes these small denials of liberty to work. It is the shutting up, by monopolisation, of the natural, the God-given opportunities for work, that compels men to struggle and fight for the opportunity to work, as though the very chance of

employment were a prize and a boon. The key to the labour question is the land question. The giant of monopolies is the monopoly of the land. That which no man made, that which the Almighty Father gives us, that which must be used in all production, that which is the first material essential of life itself, must be made free to all. In the Single Tax alone can labour find relief.Henry George.

and

dom had hardly any existence among the What we moderns imply by political free. thoughts of the Old Testament seers; but social justice, sincerity of speech and promise, devotedness of religious obedience, compass on weak for the poor, had all of them prominent places in their representation of the theocracy; and it was by the patient, continual inculcation of these duties that they sought to "prepare the way of the Lord" or bade their nation "prepare to meet thy God." Of course it was a fixed article of belief in their system that material prosperity accompanied religious obedience; and, conversely, that the people disloyal to its Divine Ruler could not successfully wage either defensive or offensive war with the neighbouring powers, nor could it secure the abundant accumulation of wealth which depended ultimately upon the blessings of climate, soil, and peace. But this correlation of the moral and material conditions of a nation is by no means absurd, or irrational; for the Jehovah of the prophets was always to them likewise the God of Nature; and it still continues true, and still needs to be proclaimed with trumpet-tongued emphasis, that we really can prosper only as we obey nature's laws. History, studied on the grand scale, and in the due perspective of successive ages, corroborates the teaching of the noblest Hebrews, as well as of the noblest minds of every literature, that the powers of the universe make for righteousness, and therefore that they are arrayed against the corrupt and the faithless.--" Jesus of Nazareth," by Watchman, page 51.

We recommend our Conservative Free Traders to read the following extract from a speech delivered by Mr. T. A. Murray MacDonald, M.P., at the last annual meeting of the Cobden Club, on July 14th of the present year :

con

"One question, he thought, was sistent with the traditional policy of the club, and consistent with the policy of Free Trade, and that Was the taxing of ground values. Cobden, in his last speech, associated the principle of Free Trade with the reform of our land system. The aim of the Free Trade movement was to relieve industry and commerce from every artificial burden. They knew that the increased prosperity of a town increased the demand for land and enhanced its value. They knew that the community was continually creating, at its own expense, fixed capital in the shape of streets, sewers, bridges, &c., the whole benefit of which ulti. mately passed to the owners of the land upon which the town was built. It would have paid the landowners of London, or any large town, to have combined to carry out these improvements at their own expense. If that was true, it seemed to him to be perfectly obvious that, owing to the enhanced value of land, burdens were imposed upon industry and commerce, from which they could be justly freed. If they looked at the total enhancement of values throughout the

The strike in the boot trade, and all it involves of suffering to the men and their families, is a landmark in the development of the protective policy of Victoria. A few average wages in the boot trade were 10s. & years ago Mr. Trenwith declared that the day for eight hours' work, attributing the prosperous condition to Protection. Since

then we have increased the duties on boots on two separate occasions, until they now stand at 58. per pair. If his diagnosis of the cause of the bootmakers' prosperity had been correct, the wages of the bootmakers ought to have gone up with every increase in the duty. But the exact contrary took place. Not only did wages decline after each increase, but each one gave an impetus to the transference of work from union factories to sweating shops. When, under these conditions, the men were called upon to agree to another cut in wages, human endurance gave out, and they went on strike at all risks.

It has been stated by Mr. G. Thomas, himself a manufacturer, and the statement is confirmed on behalf of the men, that the wages earned at making riveted boots did not exceed 18s. to 203. a week. The operatives further allege, and the statement has not been contradicted, that the average wages earned at union rates barely exceed 258. a week. What, then, must be the wages earned in sweaters' shops?

If only a part of the allegations made by the operatives are true, the average wages earned by them are fully one-third less than those earned by bootmakers in Sydney, and are lower than those paid in pauper Eng. land. This, then, is the glorious outcome of Protection, as applied in the boot trade. It has so largely induced men to become bootmakers, that there is no work for fully one-third of them, and that the consequent competition renders all of them helpless victims of the sweaters' greed.

Equally significant is the avenue of escape from this hopeless situation, which the sweated bootmakers have discovered. For once it is not "more duties," but an application to assist them in entering upon a new industry. Yes, they want to leave the protected boot trade, but they have no desire to enter any other to which the benefits (?) of Protection are extended. No hope for them there; they want to enter upon an industry which is not, and never can be, protectedupon gold mining. A number of them applied to the Minister of Mines for assistance in this direction, and if the Minister is wise he will comply with the request. If small parties were placed under the guidance of of experienced miners, something to relieve the distress and extreme competition in the boot trade might be done. The natural resources, the natural industries of the country-those which never can be protected, which are only hindered by that policy

they alone can offer relief to the distressed workers in the protected industries. This is clearly seen now, and should in itself be sufficient to kill the fable that Protection can develop the industry of a people, just as the condition of the boot trade ought to silence the blatant spouters who proclaim "Protection a workers' policy.

FISCAL FANCIES

President Cleveland showed his disapproval of the Tariff Bill by refraining from giving it his assent, and allowing it to become law through effluxion of time.

"By the use of machinery the Gaslight Coke Co. is working at a cheaper rate than when £70,000 less per annum was paid in wages."

Over a million copies of the Radical Free Trade speeches of Congressman Tom L. Johnson have been distributed by the American Single Taxers.

In the Lancashire mills the reduction of hours from 60 to 56 per week resulted in an increase of 4 per cent. in production.Ec., Sep. 1891, p. 522.

"By the abolition of the Corn Laws, the quartern loaf, which now costs 8d., we might have, like our continental neighbours, for 4d. or 44d."-" Edinburgh Review," February, 1882.

As the telegrams came in from Portland the youngest pillar of a Protectionist family exclaimed, " Lor, Mar, daddy is beaten !" The happy sky of the Lormer household was quite McLeod-ed over.

A contract for 4800 tons of steel rails for Karlsruhe has been secured by Messrs. Cammel and Co., Sheffield, at M121.75 per ton. The German tenders were from M123 to 126M.-Ec., Feb. 6th, 1892.

The clothing trade is leaving London for Leeds, where 10 per cent. to 25 per cent. better wages are paid ("Age," Nov. 2nd, 1891), and where the work is done in factories under superior conditions of labour." Fortnightly Review," Jan., 1893.

Sir William Harcourt, in a recent speech, said:"Do we not all know that to-day, even in the midst of agricultural depression, and know it with satisfaction, the wages of the labourer are double what they were in the much-regretted days of the old war? (1815)." England was a Protectionist country then.

Mr. W. Allan Sunderland reduced his hours from 52 to 48, with a 5 per cent. decrease in wages. The result was a reduction in the labour cost of the engines, an increased output, and better health in the works. The old rate of wages has therefore been restored.-W.E. " Times," Sept. 9th, 1892.

A large contract to supply the Saxon State Railways with steel rails has been given to an English firm, Messrs. Bolchow, Vaughan and Co., whose tender was below that of the German manufacturer, in spite of the high duty on rails in Germany, and the lower wages prevailing there.-"Standard," Oct. 3rd, 1891.

"About 1870 an English firm and a French firm were engaged in making similar ma. chinery. The wages paid for making each machine were about the same in both countries, although the French worked 12 hours for 4 francs while the English worked only 10 hours for 5s."-J. Chamberlain, House of Commons, Feb. 23rd, 1892.

"The way to reform the tariff is to abolish it. There can be no half-way measures with vice, and Protection is nothing but economic vice-the prostitution of government to the ends of private pro. fit. Doubtless the Democrats in the election this fall will be taught that the people have no sympathy for a policy of truckling to the money power."-" Chicago Times."

contradict itself. While stating, one day, that The "Age" has again been good enough to the fall in the price of dynamite is due to Protective duties, it states, the next day, (8/10/94):-"The value of commodities during the last few years has fallen, all over the world, in a remarkable way." Dear old" Age," we feel inclined to rank it as the most Free Trade paper-in spite of itself.

The number of males employed in the factories, works, and quarries of the colony in March last was 32.752, as against 36,599 last year, and as against 50,854 in 1890. The number of females has also fallen from 7175 in 1893 to 7063, in 1894, and was 8327 in 1890. The number of male or female employees has never been lower during the preceding eleven years.

Democratic Association will be held on A general meeting of the Free Trade Friday, November 2nd, at the Assembly Hall, Collins-street, for the electing officers in the place of the president, purpose of vice president, and members of the council vice-president, will occupy the chair. who have recently resigned. Mr. H. R. Reid, All members and friends are urgently requested to attend. Ladies also are invited.

John Wanamaker, the Postmaster-General of the late M'Kinley Government, a keeper of an immense store in Philadelphia, holds that Protection cheapens prices. Immediately it was known that the Wilson Bill was to become law, his store windows were placarded with the following notice: This store, without waiting for the last minute, has reduced prices to conform to the new tariff."

Why are our farmers so obstinate as to continue growing wheat? Why don't they

grow opium, pepper, spices, Brazil nuts, and other products of tropical climates? That is the literal question propounded to our farmers in a sapient leader which appeared in the "Age," of the 2nd last. We leave our farmers to reply, merely venturing to point out that now, when our farmers are revolting against the protective policy, the "Age" apparently wishes to consign them to a hotter climate. The "Age" and its protected hangers on, of course, are the farmers' friends. At any rate, they say so.

The Cobden Club is an excellent institution so far as it goes, and has done good service to the cause of Free Trade. But the report submitted at its annual meeting the other night shows that it is not alive to the full meaning of its own mission. It speaks of the difficulty of raising revenue without having recourse to protective duties as being the main hindrance to the abolition of tariffs. We fail to see the difficulty. The first Radical Chancellor that we get will tax land values, and abolish all tariffs; and the thing will be done. Difficulty, indeed! The only real difficulty is in getting the party leaders to fulfil their electioneering promises."London Weekly Dispatch."

17th last, calls to mind the fact that nearly A Sydney telegram in the "Argus," of the every strike in Australia is defeated by nonunion labour from Melbourne. It records the fact that Mr. Chas. Batson, secretary of the Master Printers' Association, has returned from Melbourne, where he had gone to engage printers to take the place of those in Sydney who had struck against a reduction of wages to £2 12s. a week. Batson states that he received nearly 250 applications, and that the successful applicants are being brought over in batches. Thus" Protection," by lowering the condi. tion of the Victorian operatives and destroying the power of unionism here, has become a scourge to labour in every colony of the group.

Mr.

The "Age" once more supplies us with the proof that while wages in protected Victoria have been falling for twenty years, they have largely risen, and are still rising, in Free Trade Great Britain. It records, on the 10th last, a report upon the present condition of agricultural labour in Great Britian, issued by Mr. W. C. Little, SeniorAssistant Agricultural Commissioner of the Board of Trade. He asserts "that the agricultural labourers are better off than ever

they were. The decrease in their number work by those who require it." Could the has improved the chance of obtaining regular same be stated of our agricultural labourers or of farmers either? By all accounts the English agricultural labourer is to-day much better off than the majority of our farmers. Yet Protection is the "liberal " policy.

"It was at all events certain that we could

not go on manufacturing without an extended market. The competition amongst ourselves must go on until we were reduced to beggary and ruin." The foregoing is not the utter. ance of a Free Trader, such as Mr. Murray Smith, but is the statement made by that ultra-Protectionist, Dr. L. L. Smith, on October 3rd, to the Premier, in support of a request by the Chamber of Manufactures that the Government should agree to adopt duties recommended by the manufacturers