Workmen's advocate., 1890-04-26

quesllonef, especially 1T he happens tC
 be Socialist. That this mode If opera
 ting should not be is very evident wher
 he advertises his lectures as "anti-pov
 erty lectures and charges 3s., 2s. and Is
 for admission. Bnt we trade.unionist. and socialists may take heart, for we
 know that this fellow and his nostrums are no better than rocket, that goes uI in blaze and comes down with d stink.
 A, G. YEMEN,
 Sydney, March 19.
 From the Sydney Evening NeUs of March l3, we learn, furthermore, that the f. W slngIe-taxers of Australia are as 1 fanatiCal and violent as were their once numerous brethren of this city. It looks, indeed as if the single tax delusion had everywhere the effect of turning its victims into brutes as soon and as long as their weak brains are prey to It. At a George meeting in Sydney on March | 10, our correspondent, Mir. Yewen, was delegated by the Socialist League to ask the prophet" some questions. The first he asked was: "How will the single tax enable the artisan class to ob tain access to the raS material and to the machinery that they use in the pro- duction of wealth ?"
 To this George replied, as usual, that | "the laud was the raw material of fac tories, machinery, cotton, etc." As land, raw material and machinery have each specific and distinct meaning in economic phraseology, Mir. Yewen was | naturally dissatisfied with this reply. To accentuate the fact that the owners of capital are necessarily the owners of land, and that the enormous bulk of the workers are employed by capitalists out side the mere raising of products from the land, he asked: What is to be done with the capitalists if the single-tax is abolished? Are they to employ wage laborers? ?"
 To this again, as usual, George replied with the sweeping, worn-out, unsup ported, repeatedly disproved and now plainly ridiculous assertion, that there would be no need for anybody being wage worker unless he wanted to, the natural opportunities being open to all" More unsatistied than ever, Mir. Yewen begged to ask third question, tending to show the unscientitic nature of Georges replies and the absurdity of contending that factory operatives, skilled mechanics, clerks-in a word all workers engaged in manufacturing, transportation, cor .nerce, etc.-could suddenly become independent of capi- talists by threatening ito go" or actually going on the land" George, however, refused to answer, and right under his eyes Mir. Yewen-who, by the way, is sick and weak-was set upon by two single taxers from the platform, who proceeded to maltreat him most brutally until he was rescued from their rough hands by some gentlemen in the hall
 Whatever may be the effect of such arguments, It seems, however that the very first utterances of George in Au- stralia have dspelled the mistaken i'm pression, heretofore prevailing there still to great extent, that the "California Prophet was in any sense a land nationalizer. In commenting "regret- fully" upon the probability that George would not be able to visit Queensland, the Worker, published in Brisbane, had the following Tn it's issue of March 1:
 Queensland may be accused of luke warmness in preparing to receive the great champion of "the land for the people," But the difficulty is that mo- body seems to know just what George is coming as-whether he will stand on the solid rock of land naturalization and tell us that no matter what else is right or wrong the earth is ours, any way, and the fullness thereof, or whether he will he hoisted 3E 10 the Free Trade stump in a community where most land nationallzers are inclined to Protection from purely industrial motives, which | don't affect their ideas on the land in | the remotest degree. It is very certain | that the New South Wales importers l will put up without stint for the ex- penses of George campaign in their | colony especially just prior to a general election, If the world famed reformer will swing everything through the mar. row gate of "No tariff as the chances are he will
 It Is now seen as plainly in Oceanica | as it is in Europe and America, that "the | great champion of the land for the peo- | ple' Is monumental fraud in the pay | of merchants who would be benefited by | free trade and who realize that the l single land tax would otherwise leave | the capitalislic system, with its trusts and 1 syndicates, wage slaves, tenement houses and political corruption, absolutely un- changed.
 Let us add that the Worker, which 1 claims circulation of If 000, has begun | the publication of Looking Backward" | in its columns.