Another Fault.

Another fault in the perpetual lease was that it was confined to country land and why should it be? Why not apply it to town land, to suburban and city land. (Applause.) There was a common opinion amongst the opponents of the single tax that this question of land value [unclear: was] simply a country question and that it did not affect town settlers at all. In his (the speaker's) opinion it was rather the other way round. Certainly, in reality, it affected both town and country. The third thing in which he thought the perpetual lease failed or in which it was wanting, was that it didn't give a perpetual right. In failing to do that it tailed to give the tenant absolute security for what he did upon it. Now if the perpetual lease was improved in those three directions he had indicated they had the single tax complete. (Applause) He dared say that [unclear: might] astonish some. That which they heard denounced as robbery and spoliation and [unclear: con-] fiscation—all this would be completely [unclear: realised] if they added those three provisions to the perpetual leases which had been in force for the last twenty years. The eternal lease in his (the speaker's) opinion was bad; it had no revaluation provision in it. That was the great blot But it was bad also in that it dealt only with country land. Why should not the site of that building be let for [unclear: 999] years at its present value as well as a [unclear: piece] of land in the country? He dared [unclear: say] his hearers knew a place called Crewe in England. It had an enormous population Why did that population come there? It just happened that several lines of rail-way chanced to cross at Crewe junction. It was a regular no-man's-land before these railway lines crossed there. [unclear: Then] it happened that one of the largest of these railway companies thought it was exactly the place to lay down locomotive shoos and carriage works He (Mr. Withy) had been through these shops twice, and saw the marvellous industries and the thousands and thousands of workmen employed there These, with their families, had made an enormous town. Some of these 999 years' [unclear: leases] may have a somewhat similar experience. None could tell.