Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1890-07-19
IN AUSTRALIA.
THE "PROPHET" CORNERED
AND UNMASkED EVERY
WHERE.

M0ney.Grabbers, and all kinds of
Grabbers-Repudiated as a Stu
pendous Fraud by the Wage.Wo Work-
ing Class-A True Report that the
standard" will not Publish.
Henry George has finished his Single
Tax-Free-Trade crusade in Australia.
The 'abohtionist" of poverty received
$500 from his managing agents and a
free pass over the railways from the
Free Trade partys government; so it
must be admitted that the trip paid him
pretty well. From moral standpoint,
however, his mission was a wretched
failure. And the Sngle-Taxers must
have lost some money over the "spec,"
for beggarly audiences greeted him in
many of the principal towns. so or so
people rolled up at Orange, and most of
the seats were empty at the small Mary.
borough Town Hall when he lectured
there. George, from the platform, had
to deplore the beggarly array of benches
that faced him at Marlborough land
other Queensland towns). And this,
despite the fact that the local daily
paper was an ardent advocate of the
Single-tax and did its best to boom
Georges visit, shows that the laborers
of Queensland are not to be gulled and
led astray by the smooth sophistries of
this carpet-bag adventurer An attempt
similar to the Sydney one was made to
Mobile the labor organizations in Bris-
bane and to organize big procession
to escort George from the railway sta
tion. But, although some of the union.
lists were willing to welcome George as
"a distinguished visitor" the procession
turned out to be dismal failure, not
more than 200 persons taking part all
told. This included stragglers and
small boys. George made an attack on
Socialism in Brisbane, and contended
that there was ''no conflict between
Capital and Labor" He evidently feels
bitter about the Socialist opposition in
Australia. The ''prophet" has been
cornered several times by questioners
and has given answers in one place that
directly contradicted what he said in
another. First he said that he would
exempt from taxation those who paid
large price for their land to the govern
ment, but he would not exempt those
who paid an exceptional price to in
dividual landlords for their buildings.
At Adelaide he climbed down and said
that exemption should be made in both
cases. Progress and Poverty makes no
sort of provision for exemptions of land
value from taxation; this fact is well
known to most of us, In one of his last
lectures in Sydney he turned complete
somersault and left the early Georgian
ld'1d gospel hopelessly struggling in the
road.
1--WE don't propose" he observed, "to
take from anybody anything that he
already has. We don't propose to take
land from the landowner, or unearned
increment from the man who has already
got it, but to tax land values for the
future-we will not take the values of
the present, but the UalueS Which UiH
accrue IN the future"
He was thereupon severely catechized
and asked if he had not modified his
views and preached new doctrine that
night. '"The greatest political economist
and reformer of the age" las his Austria
lian worshipers have dubbed HIM
wriggled and calculated something
about letting "byegones be byegones"
and made the following answer;
ut is not new docrine. There are |
people in South Australia (the Single |
taxersj proposing what John Stuart Mill |
proposed-namely, to allow land owners |
to collect in the future all they were |
collecting now, but to take the future |
advances in the unearned increment for |
the benefit of the community. We do |
not propose to take the unearned incre- |
ment of the past, as that is already gone |
but we do not propose that landlords |
should collect future unearned incre.
ment, but to stop right now, as soon as
possible "
Question:-"Then you do tax unearned |
increment
Ansacer:-"Unquestionably, but it is
the unedned increrf nj Of the future"
The South Aust Iiidn Chronicle in
commenting on the india-rubber like
nature of Georges patent poverty
removing scheme and his accommo-
dating nature in swallowing his pre-
viously published opinions, remarks:
after this somersault Of the prophet