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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 71

Conclusion

Conclusion.

In conclusion, he would ask them patiently to consider this question. If they heard it denounced, let them not be carried away by that, but hear and read both sides. He would ask them not to assume that he and his friends were right, but to look carefully into the whole question. Of one thing ho was certain, and that was, that it was not going to be destroyed by such criticism as it had so far received in Auckland. He wanted all to studiously avoid taking in misrepresentations. They could all think for themselves. There was nothing mysterious in the way he had got to his present views on the subject. He had gone on stage by stage. His convictions had become intensified until he had arrived at the conclusion that the reform was absolutely necessary. In this new country, they were descending stage by stage. That miserable class of beings was making its appearance, who were hardly like those who were well fed and well clothed—and this in a young country that had recently celebrated its jubilee. In Australia, which was somewhat older, the evil was worse. Only recently they had heard of 3000 unemployed in Sydney demanding work. And this condition of things might be seen in a further stage in America. The slums of New York were rapidly becoming like the slums of London. There was great distress there, and numbers of unemployed, and only a few weeks ago they were told that 100,000 people had mustered on the frontier of an Indian reserve, about to be thrown open for settlement, while a few days later the news came of loss of life in the frantic struggle to get hold of the new laud opened up. Next cross the Atlantic, and in the old world, in Eng-land and on the Continent, they would find this condition of things furthest advanced. If they would avoid following the career of those old countries, they must remove the cause which brought about those conditions, and he sincerely believed that, in spite of the criticisms launched at the head of the single tax, that remedy would finally be adopted. Mr. Henry George stood forth as the modern exponent of this scheme of reconstruction, though he was not the originator of the idea. Still, his clearness of head and skill as a writer had enabled him to give the world a wider understanding of the scheme than any other man in this generation, and by his efforts he had opened a more hopeful future to the rest of the world. (Loud applause.)