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ON Tuesday evening last Mr. Max Hirsch addressed a large audience in the Mechanics' Institute, Bacchus Marsh. The chair was taken by Mr. W. E. Prosser, President of the local Debating Society, who explained that the Society had invited Mr. Hirsch to address the public, and he had selected for his subject "The Taxation of Unimproved Land Values."

Mr, Hirsch entered upon his subject, by lauding the farming industry. Every section of the community, he said, depended upon the farmers. Manufacturers and artisans depended upon the farmers; so did all the shipping interest. It would be easy to have too many of all other occupations but that of the farmer, who looked to the markets of the whole world. How was it that farming did not pay? The Age said it was because the world's prices were too low. That was not the solution. The prices would be high enough if the cost of manufactured articles used by the farmers was not raised one-half by Protective duties. That was a system of robbery. He would prove it from the pamphlet issued by the Protectionist League. Mr. Hirsch then went through the list of articles which the pamphlet said bore a duty which benefited the farmer, and he ridiculed the mention of almonds, as so few farmers grew them.

Bran was a miller's profit, not a farmers'. The duty on butter did not raise the local price; it might just as well be said that an import duty on wool would raise its price. Then there was dholl mentioned; who grew dholl? He had to go to the dictionary to find out what it was. Maizena and oatmeal were not grown by farmers, nor were opium, tobacco and silk. Duties on these things were of no advantage to the farmers. But the pamphlet said the farmers had gained £50,000 by the duty on wheat. Yet it was the great cry of Protectionists that duties did not raise prices to the consumer. It was true that a duty raised the price, but there was this difference that the manufacturers were close" together and united, and could raise prices under the protection of a duty, but the farmers were scattered and disunited and could not do so. The farmers could only benefit by the duty in a year of local scarcity. When they exported they had to take the world's price, which was the local price also. Out of 20 years the duty on wheat might benefit our farmers once in 2 years. It reminded him of Dick Turpin, who used to give his victims 2/6 after he bad robbed them. And the gain was not nearly so great as the pamphlet stated it to be. It was l0d. per bushel last year, and 1/4 this year. The pamphlet admitted that consumers paid one million and three-quarters in protective duties.

Mark, the old contention that the manufacturer abroad, or importers, paid these duties was now abandoned. In addition to that payment on what was imported the local manufacturer increased his prices also. He would quote Mr. Trenwith on this point. (Applause.) He could see there were sympathisers with Mr. Trenwith present, but which Mr. Trenwith were they applauding? On one occasion he stated in the House that duties took toll of the outside man; on another he said that the duty was paid by the local buyer in order that the local workman might get higher wages than the one elsewhere. Which Trenwith did they applaud. Perhaps both. (Applause.) For when once they erected an idol upon prejudice they would bow down to it, whether its feet were of gold or clay. An increased price meant robbery of every man who bought protected goods. Did the protected manufacturers pay higher wages ? The sweating dens of Melbourne gave the answer, and the minimum wage laws. The working man got very few crumbs indeed, while the protected manufacturers had a very full meal.

Mr. Hirsch then quoted the list he had published in the Argus a few months ago of comparative prices at Hordern's, Sydney, and Foy & Gibson's, Collingwood, for articles free in Sydney and dutiable in Victoria, showing that the duty was added to the price. Mr. Hirsch added a sketch of the taxed farmer's life, from the time he got up and put on taxed socks to the time he went to bed between taxed blankets and was allowed to enjoy untaxed sleep - the only thing free. The whole of the Customs revenue apart from that upon j intoxicants was £900,000 a year. Everyone who paid that money in the first instance took toll upon it from the consumer. The importers put on 20 per cent., the retail dealer 33-1/2 per cent. In that way the £900,000 became £1,450,000. Protective duties averaged 35 per cent., and locally manufactured goods were increased 20 per cent, by that duty. Importers who handled them got a profit on them. The total result was that the £900,000 which the Treasury got cost the consumer £4,900,000, as £4,000,000 went to the middle men of various kinds.

On an average, every head of a family paid £25 a year to maintain Protection. He had been told that farmers were too poor to pay this average. That might be so, but they made up for it by having to pay duty on their tools of trade. And he paid again in loss upon his exported produce because freights were higher in our ports than they would otherwise be if imports came here freely. Freight for export was 4 / per ton higher in Melbourne than in Sydney. The railway freights had to be raised because locally manufactured rolling stock cost so much more than the imported stock. Freights were much higher here than in New South Wales, where they had a more scattered population. Taking an average farm of 150 acres the loss on freights alone was £11/13/4 per annum. Add that to the £25 for duties, and it made over £36 per year of robbery of the farmer.

An anecdote had been related to him of a man who paid a visit to the nether regions, and saw a number of carcases hanging up, and on enquiring what they were was told that they were Protectionist farmers, who were "too green to burn." And indeed they were, or they would not stand this robbery. He would now show how to get rid of the burden. The State must have a revenue. How ought it to be raised when we get rid of the Protective duties? It should be raised so that no man should make a profit out of the taxes. No man should be fined because he had more mouths to fill; nor because he employed labour. There was one class of the community which received benefits for which it pave no return. This j was the land-owning class. This was illustrated by a recent claim from Flinders street merchants to the Minister of Railways to keep open some gates at the railway station there, which he could well close, so far as public wants were concerned, and thus save £700' per year. They pleaded that the closing of the gates would injure their property. The Minister should have told them that lie had no desire to do that, but he was not going to exact from all the colony a payment of £700 a year in order to benefit their property. If they wanted the gates kept open they must pay the £700 per annum. He did not tell them this, but instead kept the gates open. So it was with every service rendered by the Government, whether it built railways or built roads; they all increased the value of land, yet the Government did not get one penny back.

Nicholson's corner, containing 1-1/4 acres, opposite the Town hall, was bought in Sydney before the gold fields by a man named Howie for £97. He and his family died at sea. His brother inherited (his piece, and thought so little of it that he never came to look at it. After the gold fields broke out he was sought out and asked to lease the land. He did so on most exorbitant terms for himself. For the last 30 or 40 years this man had been drawing an income of £10,000 from it, which enabled him to live in a castle in Scotland, while all the people of Victoria worked to enhance the value of his property.

The people of Victoria paid altogether four millions of rent to idle landlords in England. That was why they had bad times. Surely it was time they taxed the men who possessed this wealth. This they could do by abolishing the present taxation and substitute for it a tax on the unimproved value of all land. Exempt all improvements, and tax the bare value, whether in the cities or the country. Then we shift the burden from the over-taxed producer and maker of wealth to the appropriator of the wealth after it is made.

In the Bacchus Marsh district. he was in formed that the average farm contained 150 acres, valued at £6 per acre, of which £2 represented improvements. There were £133,000,000 worth of unimproved land value in the colony, and be would put a tax of l-1/2d. per pound on that. A farmer owning £600 worth of land would therefore pay £3/15 per year, and be relieved of £36 of Customs duties; and the Government would get as much as from the Customs duties, for no middlemen would take toll from a land tax. Under the present system of land assessment the most valuable land paid nothing, while the farmer' paid a great deal. The magnificent building in Collins street erected by the Equitable Insurance Co. cost £250,000 to build, arid the land cost £365,000.

The company should pay 2,280 pounds tax on its land, but it not pay a single penny. Under Protection, 570 farmers now paid 20,000 pounds a year; under the single tax they would pay £2,280. He repeated that the single tax would benefit every farmer by £33 a year. That would benefit every producer in the colony. He asked them to look at a very important matter. From every factory, and every walk of life, came the demand that the world could not be allowed to go on as it was now. The inventions and discoveries which made wealth were not given to us to enrich the few only. Was Socialism to erect its prison house on the wreck of our civilisation? There was too much Government interference as it was; too much half-holiday legislation; too many factory Acts; too many attempts to remove evils without touching their cause.

All sorts of bribes were given to the people to support the Government. Look at £140,000 given to the mining companies; £50,000 to distilleries; £100,000 to tobacco industry; £30,000 or £40,000 to agriculture. Look at the laws which were defeated, but which will be introduced again to give the Government the monopoly of spirits, of tobacco, of paper money. Laws to make every woman who wanted factory work dependent upon the good will of a factory Inspector. All this legislation was in the direction of Socialism. If they did not resist it they would find that they had become the slaves of an official Government. He asked them to rally round the Freetrade Democratic Association, which was the only one that could defeat Socialism because it recognised the evils which now existed and sought to remove them by individual action. Equal opportunities for all would give freedom and prosperity to all. (Applause.)

Mr. Mark Kyle, J.P., asked if Mr. Hirsch would tax all forms of wealth, as well as land.

Mr. Hirsch said he had the idea that ultimately all taxes would be raised from land. But at present he would not look for so much as that. He was a reformer, not a revolutionist. He recognised that at present people could not rise to the level of absolutely just laws. They must get 20 or 30 years time. He would abolish all customs duties, except on narcotics. Then he would reduce railway freights. Users should not be charged the cost of construction of the lines, any more than the users of roads wore. He would charge the owners of the land, which was increased in value by the railways. Next he would advise that local rates be not raised from assessing improvements, but from the land alone. No man should be taxed because he made improvements, and thus gave employment. He would also impose an income tax.

Mr. A. Robertson asked how Mr. Hirsch would ascertain the value of invisible improvements - such as clearing.

Mr. Hirsch would take its visible value, which was often less than the cost of clearing.

Mr. Robertson did not think that answer satisfactory, as it still gave no reduction for the clearing.

The Rev. F. H. Gibbs, M.A., moved a vote of thanks to Mr. Hirsch. He considered it was well deserved. Mr. Hirsch had given them some new ideas. Political views were now widening, and such views as Mr. Hirsch presented were valuable, although he supposed there was not a man present who agreed with all his ideas.

Mr. Johns seconded the vote, and thought Mr. Hirsch had rather deceived them by not adhering more to the subject of taxation of unimproved land values, which was what they came there to hear him speak upon.

Mr. Hirsch thanked them for the vote, and for their patient hearing. He was very pleased to have had the opportunity given him by the Debating Society of speaking to them, and he begged to move a vote of thanks to the President of that Society, who had so efficiently discharged the duties of chairman.

Mr. Prosser said the Society existed to promote discussions upon all subjects, irrespective of personal opinions. They were very glad to hear Mr. Hirsch upon this subject. (Mr. T. Heath: What subject?) No doubt they did not all agree with Mr. Hirsch, but they were proud to have bad him amongst them that evening, and to see so large an audience.

A supper was afterwards held in the back hall, where light refreshments were served, and a few toasts with numerous speeches were given.

The Rev. J. A, Stuart proposed the health of Mr. Hirsch, who remarking that as the Premier of New South Wales felt it an honour to have his health proposed by Mr. Hirsch, so he felt it an honour to propose the health of Mr. Hirsch, who had given up a lucrative employment solely for the purpose of endeavouring to influence men to his way of thinking.

Mr. Hirsch said Victoria" had only one city, and there was a great weakness of public opinion outside Melbourne. There was nothing to keep it alive but Debating Societies.

Editorial Commentary

WE have formed the opinion that Mr. Max Hirsch is a Freetrader because he is a Single Taxer. The logical deduction from Freetrade is Anarchy; and it is doubly so when allied with the Single Tax; trebly so when State control of social environments is condemned, as it is by Mr. Max Hirsch. We understood from him that, as he would not lodge his executive force in the State, he did so in "voluntary organisation." That either means nothing in the larger affairs of industrial life, or it means Trusts, Syndicates, Pinkerton guards, &c. Why this horror of the State as the policeman?

Mrs. Commandant Booth, of the Melbourne Salvation Army, recently published a most excellent article in praise of the Police force as a social agency of the most Samaritan and at the same time highly intelligent and ethical character, and we endorse every word of her remarks. Prejudice against force, created by a manhood suffrage Parliament, under the impression that license means liberty, is unworthy of an enlightened people. Yet that is the ideal which Mr. Max Hirsch sets up. It is the most thoroughly impracticable one of which we can form any conception in these days when international comity is concentrated by electric telegraphs into intellectual Collectivism, whether you like it or not; while commercial inter-relations, with the aid of swift steamers, come very close behind.

The complexity of man, the individual, is increasing every day; the interdependence of classes and communities is making marvelous strides. Look at Japan, for instance; already conqueror of China, and believed by many to be able to give Russia a shake, to say nothing of Australia.

By the way, Mr. Hirsch lamented that the "poor farmer" had to bear the burden of a tax upon matches, among other things. Considering that he can buy, in any township in Victoria, Japanese matches at 2d. per dozen boxes, this tax cannot be very burdensome. A good deal of what Mr. Hirsch said as to those burdens was of an extremely fanciful compound multiplication character, and even if accurate it is most unwise to pander to class prejudices by identifying any class of the community as specially subjected to taxation imposed upon everybody. Even if it were true (which it is not) that farming pursuits are the backbone of any country in these days, farmers as a class are not separated from other interests. What does the fact that there are 1,000 young men applicants now for 25 vacancies in the Police force mean? Probably more than half of those applicants are farmers' sons. How many more are there in various trades and occupations throughout Australia?

The problem of keeping Victoria solvent as a self-governing State has been no easy one to solve, and Mr. Hirsch's crude proposals to resolve a highly complex civilisation into Fiji elements of simplicity in growing wheat, wool, &c., would relegate the colony to very much the status it had in the old Henty days of whaling settlement on Portland Bay. The fact that every nation in the world has been Protectionist ; that most of the leading countries are so now; and that not even Great Britain is wholly Free-trade, proves that Protective principles are as essential to self-government as clothing is to civilised man. It was a defect in Mr. Hirsch's address that, although he attacked our mundane Cosmos in its two most essential characteristics of aims and methods of Government, and methods of taxation, both fiscal and territorial; and condemned its net results as unable and unworthy to continue, yet he said not a word; about what may be called the middle distance of methods of production and of distribution. He had a good deal to say about middlemen's profits, but what about their losses, and who pays for them? What does he suppose created the crisis of 1893 but excess of Individualism?

Passing to the question of land taxation proposals it is quite a mistake to say that land is the source of all wealth. We know that 99 people out of 100 believe that it is, and that delusion led Mr. Henry George and all his disciples astray. Even if it were the source of all wealth you would have to define where and whose wealth it is before you can equitably tax it. "The world's market" is a phrase which has more than one meaning. It means,' for one thing, world-wide fluctuations of demand and price, creating instability of broad acres values. But, apart from that, land has no other inherent value anywhere than as a source of food supply; and the value of that depends upon the value of the "life" which food sustains; and the value of that life constitutes "wealth" in all forms known to a luxurious civilisation, from diamonds to food grains. Therefore, the farming class anywhere is at least two removes "sustaining all other classes," even if a start from first principles could be obtained. While, seeing that the farming class everywhere is a shuttlecock of the " world's market, "in the last analysis, it is absurd to build upon farming pursuits as the corner-stone of any nation's prosperity.

Great Britain is very markedly and even cruelly disdaining to do anything of the kind at the present moment. And so far from looking to land as a sustainer of a single tax it is specially relieving it of a good deal of local taxation which falls upon other forms of realised wealth. That is the proper course to take. Land, after all, is only the working capital of the man who utilises it. He should not be penalised in the slightest degree in that work simply because his capital is spread out to all beholders, and is not concealed in interest-bearing securities, or in some of the many forms of property. Many a publican derives a greater profit from his bar than a squatter does from his run; and a proposal to single-tax the former would meet with our entire approval, until the State takes possession of all the drink traffic, wholesale and retail, which it will do the moment that the inevitableness of State Socialism, as the only salvation of our civilisation, is understood. And the idea of taxing the natural or unimproved value of land is quite a delusion. There is no such thing. j A multiplicity of factors give value j to land, and none of them are "natural" or unimproved.

It is possible to exempt some specified improvements, but a number must remain, such as nearness to lines of traffic, or to a railway station, and exempting improvements is really of the character of lengthening the blanket at the bottom by cutting a piece off the top to sew on to it. If improvements are exempt the corpus has to bear a heavier tax, or the community throws away its assets. Take Mr. Hirsch's special instance of the Equitable Insurance corner. If, as he says, the community at large has given an unearned increment value to that site, it has also given an unearned increment value to the utilisation of it by a palatial building. The tax-paying capacity of the property depends upon its earnings as a whole, and its assessment for taxation should be similarly determined. It is only juggling with words to do anything else. In the Century Magazine for July, 1890, there is an article by Mr. Edward Atkinson upon the Single Tax, a reply by Mr. Henry George, and a rejoinder by Mr. Atkinson, who has by far the best of the argument.

He very pithily says: -" Land itself will not provide for its own taxation." That disposes of the whole argument for the Single Tax, which Mr. George bases upon the statement that -" Land is not produced by man;" neither is the atmosphere, but it is just about as foolish to talk of taxing the latter as the former apart from the use which man the unit owner or occupier, and man the community, make of both.