The herald., 1894-03-20
SINGLE TAX A NATIONAL LAW,
The Opinion Held by District
Attorney Dillon.
Ofiaions Expressed at the Meeting 6
Held Last Night.
t,HGs Audience sud 0rsat Interest
Ms.tfsstsd-soms OF the oiaims
hlAds for tue
Sysrem.

Another large and intelligent audi
snse attended the public meeting OF the
Single Tax club which was held last
night at Unity church. The hrst and
principal speaker introduced by Presi-
dent Ralph z. Hoyt was Hon. Henry
G. Dillon, district attorney, who was
greeted with applause and listened to
closely by all while he delivered brief
but eloq nent address on The Unem-
ployed and the Single Tax. Among
other interesting things Mr.. Dillon said t:
We stand upon earth. Our heads are
bRthed in the etherea. atmosphere.
The rain and the sunshine fall upon the
just and the unjust. All these things
are essential to the existence OF man on
this planet, and each OF them is the gilt
OF God to man. 70 each He gives freely
and naturally all the air that can be
bTeAthed, AZ the rain and sunshine that
can be absorbed, and all the land that
can be used and occupied. No man
can take more without doing q wrong to
his brother, nor without disobeying
natural law. And no man can disobey
q natural law without incurring a pen.
atty which he or his descendants will
have 10 suffer.
Every man who is born into the world
inherits these natural opportunities,
constituting an estate therein which en-
titles him to an equal opportunity with
all his fellows to have a hRbitation and
a use in all things necessary to sustain
life. Amy statute or common law which
gives the right to one man to take and
Vui N ia fall h0 n
needs Tor his own use is contrary to
natural law and opposed to the spirit OF
our free constitution. We do not war
against the individuals who have fenced
in the land by paper scroll, who hold
these vast estates in land, coal, iron and
oil out of use in order to compel their
fellows to pay them an exorbitant price
for tho privilege of living on the earth
ct ali; nor do we demand share OF
thsir spoils or division OF their wealth I;
but we do condemn the folly of the peo-
pie in enacting and sanctioning laws
which permit such things to be. while
millions of hands want acres, and
millions OF acres want hands.
The army Of unemployed, which has
and still is harassing our city and coun.
ty. is an outgrowth from this state OF
affairs. The men among them who re-
ally want work should have an oppor-
tunity to create wealth by applying
their labor to land. There should be a
homestead for every one of them in
these United States. Those among
them who should work and will not,
are men who have been debaeed and
corrupted by the sight of wealth which
the whole people have conferred upon q
few by laws which these men were not
wise or cunning enodgh to take advan-
tage OF. They look upon wealth thus
obtained az robbery. and thus justify
their own idleness and crimes.
We are the defendants of those who
in times past established the land grant
system, and we are now paving the PEN
atty for their folly. No matter whether
the grant went to O favorite of the
crown, or private corporation, it was
q incorporation of an estate which
no man created and which NO law should
take away.
The speaker dwelt briefly on the prin-
ciplee thus outlined, and argued strong
ly in favor OF the single tax, contending
that it offered the only solution of the
unemployed labor problem.
John E. Bennett furnished an account
OF the practical effects of the modified
single tax in New Zealand.
Recent adVlcea from the little c0un-
try OF New Zealand indicate that there
is more prosperity in that colony than
in any other known district on the
globe; and its 900, 900 inhabitants claim
that it is due to their new scheme Of
government. Only few years ago New
Zealand'e financial credit was 30 low
that they found it nearly impossible to
secure needed loans for public use, and
then only at ruinous rates, while busi-
ness generally was dull, and as
there was little improvement the
public revenues were light and
insufficient. But in 1887 q new
party sprang into power, among whose
first acts was the taxing of land; the
charges not only increased with the size
and value of the land, but the tax was
higher on uncultivated than on culti-
waited lands. The tax rate, for in
stance, on a piece OF land valued at
$4,000 was "a penny on the pound eter-
ling; on piece of land valued at G2OO,-
600 the tax rate was Ia pence on the
pound. The result was that most OF the
large landed proprietors, who were
mainly non-residents, put their land on
the market for what it would bring. 1t
was largely bought by small farmers and
sheep owners in small tracts and culti-
waited. OF course this greatly increased
the revenue. In 1890 the colony was