THE GENERAL ELECTION.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 279, 24 November 1896, Page 3

THE GENERAL ELECTION.

MR GEO. FOWLDS AT THE OMufeA HOUSE.

T HJ? LAND QUESTION.

Lisi night Mr Geo, Fowlds, one of bhe candidatea for a cisy seat, gave an address t the Opera House. There waa lar-a attendance. Among those seated 0B the platform wore Rs>vs. Goo. Burgess ,£_ Peters, Messrs Arthur Withy, G. gigging, Spragg. E. Witby, Cleghorn, F. M. King, and a large number of ladies. Mr S. C. Brown presided. In introducing the" candid ate, the Chairmsin said thab he (the latter) possessed many of the Mouisites for a good representative. [AoDl--se-) He tbou« hfc tbaC ln *Vlr Fowlds thoy had an honest, consistent, respectable and capable man, and one who L most topice would represent them well if he was sent to Wellington, THE ADDRESS. On coming forward Mr Fowlds waa received wibh. loud applause. "Some ngople"he began "aro born great; some achiovo greatness, while obhera have greatness tbrusb upon them. During the L,t week or ao the Auckland Evening Siar lias been doing its beat bo thrußt blmb oieatneaa upon me. They have been nutting me in bebween euch mes as Sir George Crev and Sir Koberb Sbout, comoaring and contrasting my opiniona with theirs. Now, I hardly know what I have bsen doing that I should be thus honoured *. a t the outset of my seeking political life to be compared and measured wibh these eminent politicians nnd statesmen. However, ip their endeavour to have thia greatjiesa'thrus'C upon me, the Star have been ' guilty of the grossest misrepresentation of ' my opiniona and oi the operations of aouio ; of the measures which I propoae." Mr Fowlde went on to say that hia object in ' meeting them waa to deal with some of these misroprosentationa and putting bi3 opiniona and proposals before them in such ; a way tbat they could see for themselves hoff they would operate. He impressed upon bsem bhab thore was nothing personal whatever in this controversy between him and the editor of the Star. He entertained < _ very high opinion of him and had a ; friendly feeling towards him, and he j hoped when thia political eonteeb waa pieb they should be able to meeb on | as friendly terms again aa they had hitherto, (Applause.) But the editor had made lOme strong B(iatementß with reference to bii candidature, and during his addreas it J nighb be necessary for him to make some ; itrong remarks regarding the editor's state- . ments. And while he would Bay ab tbe beginning bhab the Star had been guilty of '■ the grosßesb miarepreaenbation, ho waa not saying that that misrepresentation had bees wilful. He would at the close leave ' th»m to say whether it was wilful ' or due to insufficient knowledge. ' Ho would have a difficulty, he knew, ia dealing with thia question with- * out running the danger of showing that he did nob poaaeaa the qualificabiona necessary to be successful in the coming "elections, because tho Star had , laid down the conditions on which candidates muat labour if they wished to get into Parliament. In bho firab place, bhey mußt . job be" Independent " candidates. 'They , mait be dependent. On what ? On the , will of the Premier of the day. Then, they , must nob be full up of ideas and theories, t and the third condition, perhaps the worst, , was they must nob epeak too fluently, r (Applause.) Now, some of his friends had j told him thab when he spoke on the economics of bhe land question, he epoko both J forcibly and fluently, so he would require to be cautious that he did not incur thab die- j qnaliScation, and thereby be debarred from ( receiving their sutl'ragea on the election ( day. He wanted them nob bo forget thab , the Stak, in abbompting bo so concentrate j the eyes of the electors on thia queabion, . bad been endeavouring I TO CONFUSE THE ISSUE? I ab stake in the election. (Applause.) j They would think from bhe leading articles j tba!) had appeared during the paab week or so thab the issue in tho coming contest was simply Bingle tax or no einglo tax. He ' declined altogether to accept the issue aa laid down by the Star. He based his can- ! didature on hia expressed opinions on ' various leading questions on which he had J speken at hia different meebinge. Ab nob ; one of those meetings had he advocated ■ the adoption of the single tax, for although ho waa always ready to stand 1 up and advocate any principle which 1 he approved, thab waa a very different 1 thing from trying to thru3t thab opinion J down people's throats. (Applause.) No one recognised more than he did bhat the doctrine of the single tax waa not a popular ' doctrine at the present day. The editor of the Stak also fully recognised that, and -is Object in decrying the single tax ab the present stage was to frighten people into the idea thab single tax advocates would j U soon as they were elected try to thrust ( tbe single tax on the people of bhis colony. | The real issue was nothing of the kind. ( It was whether the governmenb of New j Zealand was to bo in the hands of j free representatives, of a free , people, or whether the country waß _ to bo dominated by the Premier— j whether tbey should havo government of f the people, for the people, by the people, or j governmenb by tho Premier, for the , Premier and a few of hia frienda —whether , they should abolish tbat obnoxious eyatem , of party Government, and have the rational ( system of electing the executive. Those , were some of the questions ab stake, and on ; which he was prepared bo be tried ab bbc , (lection day. Ib waa a question, too, j whether they would have'that terrible , American Boss eystom grafted into tho , politics of this country. He bad decided , daring the election to have no paid can- , Taesers. He relied on the platform and , on hii opinions to carry him into the , Homo, and if that wouldn't- do it ho was , willing to stay ab home and attend to hia , own business. Aa he had been challenged , to fight ho took up thab challenge and was j prepared to advocate his proposals or j principles, but he recognised it waa a ( fool's game writing to tho newspapers, for > they all knew the editor could devote two \ mcheß to the discussion to their one, and , pile on misrepresentation. In accepting i the challenge he had taken the choice of Weapons and had chosen the platform. , (Applause) INDEPENDENT MEMBERS. ! One of the things the Star had taken up I *M the question of independent membera, j "torn had characterised aa "railwter?,' Whyahould they ba opposed to in- ' members? He claimed it was tho *Wjt of the representatives of the people 7? be free and independent, the same aa S^P'" themselves. (Applause.) They "'led Independent membera "rail-sitters." ; J1 elected it might be found thab ] n! aWou '^ make someone elae sib ™™erai'. rather than ait on it himself. He had laid down hia prin- ! |' ple" Nearly, and when he gob to Welling- '. °". as h e hoped he should (great applause), _ would fiighb lor those principlea and , P*"" fully and as freely as he had XT on the. platform. Ho intended to . W' m' 0n the rail of political oxpediency, 0,1 the solid ground of economic truth. sib .edboe crky's views. W- C?? w now t0 tho question of Sir IU «rt9»w y and the ain^'o bix- He had year, n Sir GROrge Grey had been tor L" Resident of the Single Taxers' funds t" 1 liberal,y contributed to its ■ Sir (j TAR proceeded to show thab i Heiad^ 8 Gr6y was n°t a single taxer. at» replied that the evidence was i

undeniable. The Star inserted the letter, and Baid bo was only an Honorary President. In reply to thab. he now wished bo say bhab he was nob only honorary bub honourable,—-boo honourable, in facb, to have his aame associated with a society, and to contribube toward* the funds ora Bocioby, whose principles he disapproved of. Bub, then, the writer of the article said he had conversed with Sir George Grey many times and knew ho did nob approve of these principlea. He (Mr Fowlds) hoped to show before he had dgno thab bhe writer of those articles did nob understand the ABC oi the principle" under discussion, and bhab, therefore, he might have discussed with Sir Georgo Grey for a century without comprehending the latber'a position on the question. (Applause.) Anyone reaident in Auckland muat know thab the dominanb note in Sir George Grey'a polibica waa bhe securing for the people thab right to the use of bhe land which waa bheir natural inheribage, and bhab he advocated taxation on land values. THE STRUGGLING SETTLER. Mr Fowlds now proceeded to criticise a leading arbicle which appeared in the Star recenbl.y, pointing oub the effect which his prcpoaal to add Id to bhe present land tax would have on the small struggling sebbler who owned a piece of land of an unimproved value of £500. Ho wanbed first of all bo know where thab small abruggling farmer waa. He wanbed to look for him. (A person roae in the audience, aad said he waa one. Laughter). Mr Fowlds asked him what bhe improved value waa. The elector said £500, bub he could noo geb £500 for the land now. Mr Fowlds went on to aay bhab he doubbed bhab a piece of land could exisb with an improved value of £500 and an unimproved value of £500. He still wanted to know where thab umall struggling farmer waa. (A voice: "I am here." Laughter.) He knew something about thia small struggling settler thatt the Star had been speaking aboub if bhe Star didn't. They did nob know thab thab poor abruggling sebbler had a wife and five children to support, and bhab bis taxation came to £24 18? 9d per year (applause), so thab when he publd in the £ bax on bhe unimproved value of the land, which came to £4 3s 4d, be did nob double his taxation. He wanted to know where that small struggling Bettler waa now. He died a good many years ago, and the Star waa responsible for bia death, by being a radical, liberal and progressive paper, and advocating taxation on land values. The *' Herald " at that time waa standing up for monopoly and privilege aa the Star was doing today. They were proclaiming thab taxation on land values would ruin tbe poor struggling settler, aud this poor struggling settler with £500 unearned increment died of sheer fright. But Whab did be leave behind him? He lefb behind him five children, and each of those lire children had five children, and on that particular piece ot land wibh £500 unimproved value there were 35 settlers instead of seven. They had seen bhab bhihg in connection with the Cheviot Estate, more settlers being placed on tbe land than there were there before, aud tho Star helped to do it by advocating tbe taxation of land values. THE SINGLE TAX APPLIED. He wiahed to turn now to the Governmenb returns of land holdings in 1891. In 1892 a return called B 20 A was laid before Parliament giving the result of the assessment of 1891. In thab table the total number of land owners in the colony waa given as 91,501. Of those, 45,192, or just aboub half, held under £100 of unimproved land value and the average bhey held was less bhan £38. Lob them see how these people would be harassed and ruined under tho impost of a penny in the pound which ho proposed. They would be called upon to pay 3a 2d per annum, and if bhey abelialtted the exemption under the existing land tax, 63 4d, so that even if they, only consumed thab miaerable two tins of kerosene spoken of by the Star th<ey would have 2a 4d of extra taxation aa against the remission of a large, portion of breakfast table duties and the insurance of a pension of 6a per week after reaching the age of 65 years. They would nob, therefore, have much to complain about. Bub he wanted to-hunt for bhab abruggling sobtler wibh bhe £500 of unimproved value, and the nexb item on thia table B 20 A brought them very near to him, and included nil under £SQP. They amounted in numbor to 31,207. Adding them to tho 45.192 they gob 76,399 landowners oub of a total of 91,501 in the colony who owned lesa than £500, while the average which they held waa £112. Under hia proposals Obey would pay 9a 4d, and if the exemptions under the present land tax were abolished ho would pay 18a Bd. That would be rather heavy duty on two tins of kerosene a year, but he proposed dealing with the beneSta to be obtained later on. Lob bhem still further examine the table and sco where thoahoe waa going to pinch which waß hurting the Star co badly, WERE HIS PROPOSALS JUST. The Star had said hia proposals were foolish and unjust. His reply to tbat was that it might be good busiaesa to be brusbed as a friend of bhe poor abruggling settler ab one time and to betray that trust and stand up for monopoly and privilege at another time, bub was ib wise or jusb ? He maintained it was absolutely wicked, and yab thab was the position the Star had taken up in thoir antagonism to the proposals he waß laying before the electors, and he was aatiafied bhe greab bulk of the workers would ccc through it, and take the aame view as he did. The table also showed bhab 684 persona owned £21,802,896 of land values, or an average of £31,875 each. Now he thoughb he had discovered the struggling setbler and workman wibh the cottage who would be ruined by his proposals. These 684 poor struggling settlors would havo to pay £132 16s 3d each per annum. Did they bhink bhey could afford to do so and live ? They have only a paltry 21f million pounds worth of land values to do ib with, .and with interest down to five per cent, these 684 poor people bad only an income of £1,090,145 per annum. Why, ib was ridiculous to balk of these proposals of his ruining either the struggling settler or the workman in the town. (Applause.) Then the Star had recently aßked why in the name of all that was sensible, if farming was Buch a profitable business thab ib could bear so much baxation aa single taxers wished to pub upon ib, that single taxers did not now, whea the land was comparatively speaking escaping taxation, take themselves to tho country? His reply to that was that mosb single taxera were men with thoir heads screwed on the right way. They refused to go to the country because they knew the preeenb system of taxation waa only DAYLIGHT ROBBERY of the settler. (Applause.) If any man or paper said that a tax on land values and a remission of a aimilar amount off the duties on the necessaries of life waa a burden on the settler, it was a lie, and it was no loss a lie becauae the man who said ib might bo ignorant of the true facts of the caae. (Applause.) With regard to a statement which appeared in the Star that tho proposal would bring thia colony into competition with the sweating of China and Japan, ho asserted that never in his candidature had he proposed to open the doorß of this colony, or do away with any protective tariffs which they had now in existence, by the abolition of these duties. He did nob deny he believed in the principle of free trade. bub he did nob propose to touch this until everyone of those had beon set free. In one leader the Star had ..stated thab the people were apt, without giving the neceasary thought to the question, to be led I

astray. They were, he said, not prepared bo trust bhe people. They were nob prepared bo leave them bo decide how they should be taxed. THE DOTY ON KEROSENE. Now let them see how the two tine of kerosene and the remission of breakfasttable duties would work ont. The tobal population last census was 703,360. Of bheaa, 307,291 lived in citiea and borougha, where tbey moatly used gas, and even in outside boroughs round cities there were many thousands supplied with gas, bub he wanted to err on the safe Bide, ao he took the users of kero?eno as 390,000. and he found the average worked out at over 12a for each family of ; five persons. They find, therefore, that* out of half the landowners who are abruggling settlers and users of keroaene on the remission oi this duty alone they would pay their land tax and have 5s 4d bo the good, besideß Whab they would gain under the remission of breakfast table j duties and the old age pension scheme. Let them take now the larger holders of land values. The 76,399 who owned up to £500 averaged £112, and would pay ab 2d in the pound, 18a B'L If struggling settlers and üßora of kerosene, they would have remitbed on that head 12s, leaving 6a 8d against breakfast table duties and pensions. Now, bhe Id in tho pound, wibh exemptions abolished, would give £270.000. The pe^hision fund would bake £163,000, bhe remission of kerosene duty £47.364. This left £59,636 to come off the broakfaat table duties. Taking the population ab 703,360 this gave 140,672 families of five each. The saving per family would be 8s 6d per annum, thus,'out of the 76,399 of the total landowners of the colony those who were atruggling setblera and using kerosene would pay less under his proposals by 2s pel* annum than bhey did ab present, besides having the pension of 6b per week provided for them after they reached the age of 65. his pension fund proposal. His proposal with regard to the pension scheme was thab 6a per week should be paid to everyone over 65 years of age who bad resided 20 years in the colony. Tbe Star said: "The amount required is variously estimated between £300.000 and £700,000." The last cenßua showed that tho exacb number of people over 65 in the colony was 14,342. Supposing everyone of them were entitled bo a pension, tbe amount would be £223,000 per annum. The only way tbo Star could have made tbat mistake, therefore, was by assuming thab the pension was more bhan 6s, ia which case bhey might have said it was variously estimated between one and bwo millions a year. It bhe figures of bhe Chriatcburch Progreaßive League could be taken as correct;- the amounb required to pay a pension of 6a would bo £163,000. There would be from £40,000 to £50,000 a year saved in connection with bhe charitable aid system, but he did nob take any account of bhab. The Star said taxation Bhould be fairly apportioned bebween land and other forms ot wealth. Let them see how thia would affect hia proposals. Mulhall in hia " Dictionary of Statistics " gave the average of wealbh at £370 per head of the population for Australasia in 1888—the highest in bhe world. The total land value in thia colony in IS9I averaged over £107 per head, leaving £263 in other forms of wealth. Now, thia wealth in other forms, it waa only reasonable to suppose, waa held ab least as largely by those who owned the laud values in large quantities as by those who owned ib ia small quantities or who did nob own ib ab all, and when they paid their Customs duties they were only paying their proportion of bhat obher taxation. At present, thab average per head of £263 of obher forms of wealth paid a total taxation of £2,156,975, and on the same basis the land value of £107 per head ought to pay £877,552 while ib only actually paid £270,000. After his id in tho £ had beeiV pub on ib ib would still be £337,552 per annum shorb of ibs fair share even on that basia under the system which bhe Star advocated. THE RESITLV OP THE SINGLE TAX. Dealing with the single tax pure and simple the result would work oub something like thia : The total unimproved valuo of alienated land waa in 1891 £54,427,175, and 5 per cent, on thab would give £2,721,358. Thab was £200,000 more than the revenue lasb year, excluding railway earnings, postal and telegraph revenue and debenture issues. Five per cent, on the 1891 values would, therefore, give more than the preaent revenue. Under ib 45,192, or half bhe landowners of the colony would pay tin averago of 38s, and 76.399 would pay £5 12a per annum, and what did these , peonle pay under the present system. He thought it was only fair to assume that the great bulk of the landowners were murried men with families. Taking the family ab five, father, mother, and three children, thab would give in the colony 140,672. Dividing the total taxation by i bhat number and excluding bhe land tax i and other ibems menbioned before they found thab bhe Governmenb gob from each family £15 6a Bd, and by tho time the importers' and retailers' profibs were added to thab amounb each family paid from £25 to £30; therefore, bhe greab bulk of the landowners would pay £15 or £20 lesß than bhey did at present. Where then, he asked, would the revenue come from ? Ah, thoae 684 struggling settlers 'bhab the Star contended for, it was thoy who would have to disgorge. He assured bbem the Star need nob ehed these' crocodile tears for the small struggling settler, and the poor working man in bhe bowna. He said •emphatically ib waa simply election " gag " to talk like that. (Applause.) It was the same thing that was being taken up by eomo of those canvassing in the interests, of other candidates. A great many people did not understand the principle of the single tax, and he had known cases where canvassers had tried to frighten people who intended voting for him by saying to them, " Why, Geo. Fowlds ia a single taxer. he is going to take your allotment from you. Don'b vote for him." He was not ashamod to say that he was a single taxer. Bub while he waa nob afraid to stand up to fight with even tbe editor of tho Star, when he found men of such greab intellectual capacity and calibre, with such profound knowledge of political economy, as Mr W. Crowther and Mr Samuel Vaile (laughter) entering the lists to oppose the simrle tax, he reverently stood aside and made room for the operation of their gigantic intellects. (Laughter and applause). what was the single tax? He reminded th*m bhab he had never intended making bhe einglo bax a question ab this election, bub assured them he had been forced to apeak upon ib to remove grosa misrepresentation. The single tax waa simply thia: To secure for the people their natural heritage in the land. Its fundamental principle waa all should have equal opportunities with regard to liberty, life, and the pursuit of happiness. The people could not live withoub land, so they muat have land to live. If they had equal rights to liberty then they must have equal righbs to the land. Did the landlord produce as a landlord 1 Ho produced nothing, but he was able to extract something from tho producer's profit, and whatever he aa a landlord thus extracted from what the producer produced by that extenb mußb the product of the producer's toil be reduced. Single baxers, he declared emphatically, under tho3e conditions stood up for the ONLY TRUE RIGHT OF PROPERTY, the right of the producer to tho true producb "of his labour. (Applause.) He stood up in bhis conteet not for monopoly and privilege, bub for the rights of humanity, The Star could Btand up for

monopoly and privilege if it liked, bub it would have to remember that the policeman of human progress was on his beab, and that it it did not move on ib would geb run in for obstructing the path of human progreas. (Applause.). " CRANKS, FADDISTS AND ASSORTED IDIOTS.'' Mr Fowlds went on to deal with bhe epithets applied to single taxera by another paper—" Cranks, faddists and assorted 'idiots !" He read a number of j utterances by 6ome of those whom be thought came under this category. ■ Amongeb the. authors were the Right Rev. j Dr. Thomas Nulty, Bishop of Meath, Mia3 (Frances E. Willard, Adam Smibh (bhe (father of political economy), bbc Righb Hon. John Morley, M.P., Professor Thorold Rogers (author of " Six Centuries of Work and Wagea, etc."), Herbert Spencer, John Stuarb Mill, the Right Hop. W. E. Gladstone, Ricardo (tho great political economist), Labouchere (tbe editor of London !«• Truth "), Karl Marx, Buckle, the Nestorian, J. R. Sovereign, Grand Master Workman of the Knighta of Labour in America, Michael Davitt, Carlyle, and Ru«kin. Mr Fowlds also read some extracts from the Star of 16th May, 1889, 7bh and Jan., 1890, respectively, on tha land question, which he said wero inconsistent with the preaenb attitude of bhub journal on the subject. He said his only object ab tho present Btage was to remove misrepresentation. He contended, the benefits which all bhe small settlers would receive would be greater under the single tax than bhey received under the preaent system. But it waa nob a question whether they would pay lesa than they did already, bub one of righb. Waa ib righb thab tho working people of tbe colony should bear the burden of taxation, or whether ib Bhould be put on the back of privilege. A PROHIBITION MEETING. Mr Fowlds then referred to an article headed "The Prohibitionists and tbe Elections " which appeared in the Stak of November 19th, commenb being made therein on a meeting held in Pitb-abreeb schoolroom to choose candidates. Mr Fowlda eaid that with regard to tho charge of wire-pulling behind the scenoa to aelect candidates he had nothing whatever to do with ib. The Star wanted men bo bind themselves body and soul to the Governmenb of the day. QUESTIONS. , A large number of questions were- then answered by Mr Fowlda. Mr HuaeldeaH, who was temporarily appointed to give clerical assistance to bhe Warden ab tho Thames, said thab he was "sacked" because he waa a prohibitionist. VOTE OF THANKS. The Rev, George Burgeia moved, •' That a vote of thanks be given to Mr Fowlda for his address," Ho said that bhey would have to wait until Friday week to give him their confidence. Mr Fowldß thab evening had manifested bis mastery of economic science, and shown thab ho waa nob a man of one idea. He also had the advantage of having a backbone. The Rev. A. Peters seconded tbe motion, which was put to the meeting and carried unanimously, amidab loud and enthusiastic applause.