Mr. Glynn's Address.

Mr. P. McM. Glynn, B.A., LL.B., than addressed the meeting. He said after the very comprehensive presidental address and the interesting letter from Mr. Webster, it would not beseem him to tire their patience with a very long address; but as he had been asked to say something he would endeavor to make his remarks as practical as possible. The question of land nationalization was not a new one; he meant by this that it was new as far as the present wide-spread energetic advocacy of the principle was concerned, but the theory of the necessity of the State having a direct interest in the soil had been thought out by leading political economists for generations back. Even in their own town as far back as 1872 a society existed, which urged the substitution of leasing for the alienation of Crown Lands. (Hear, hear.) In Victoria also some fifteen years ago an organisation was started under the name of the Land Tenure Reform League of Victoria, having for its objects the adoption of the leasing system, and the resumption by the State of the alienated lands. The question, as he before said, was not a new one, but it was only within the past few years that it had come within the scope of practical legislation. If ever political economists spoke out plainly and unanimously it was on the evils resulting from the existence of private property in land. Spence, Cobbett, and others had condemned it, and passing over to Ireland, one of the Young Ireland Party in 1848, James Fenton Lalor, said—"I hold and maintain that the entire soil of a country belongs of right to the entire people of that country, and is the rightful property, not of one class, but of the nation at large, in full and effective possession, to let to whom they will, on whatever tenures, terms, rent services, and conditions they will, one condition, however, being unavoidable and essential— page 14 the condition that the tenant shall bear full, true, and undivided fealty and allegiance to the nation, and the laws of the nation whose land he holds." The institution of private property in land had, next to Rome, taken stronger hold in England than in any other country, and there its evil results were seen in all their enormity, Properly the institution did not exist even in England, as, strictly, owners only possessed an estate in the land—that is, they held from the State. This was exemplified in the case of a landowner dying intestate and without heirs, when the land would escheat to the Crown. Possibly the day was not far distant when the State would exercise its proper Influence over the land. If they looked into the question they would see how the system jof private property in land was first brought about. Originally in the times of the chase and pastoral pursuits, the land was held in common, but subsequently when agricultural pursuits were followed the land was periodically portioned out, but it was still held subject to the rights of ownership only vested in the people as a whole. This was the law the Hebrews, and from it originated the institution of the jubilee year, when land which had become alienated reverted back to the original owner for the State. This principle of common ownership, in an imperfect form, still existed in India, Switzerland, Java, and Russia. In the latter country a great portion of the soil was held in common by the village communities They also found that wherever the religion of the Koran existed land nationalization was applied. Under the Koran God was the only proprietor of the land, from whom it was held by the State, In thirty-three districts of Java under these conditions 2,000,000 families of agriculturists were connected with the soil, who contributed rent directly to the State, and speaking of this country that eminent and talented scholar, Professor Emile de Laveleye said :—" Under the British rule lands were sold to Europeans; but since Holland has recovered possession of the colony, they have only been granted leases for terms of greater or less duration, frequently of twenty five years, The Governor, Du Bus, thought that land should not be sold, for two reasons—First, to avoid introducing a principle borrowed from Europe into the midst of a totally different system; and secondly, to enable the leaseholder to expend in reclaiming the ground what he would have had to employ as purchase money. The government retained this system, and, under the new law, grants leases (erfpacht) for seventy five years, with exemption from land tax during the first seven years, and of half the tax from then till the twelfth year. This seems to be an excellent system, and very superior to that of perpetual grants, generally practised in English colonies, in Australia, and America. A lease of seventy-five years is sufficiently long for tbe lessee to execute all the works of cultivation which a proprietor would perform. On this point there can be no doubt, when we see magnificent buildings in England erected on lands leased for sixty or seventy years. The immense works of art required for the construction of a railway incomparably surpass those which must be executed to bring the productiveness of the soil to its highest pitch; and yet the millions necessary for these gigantic enterprises are never wanting. In Java many lands have been cultivated at great expense, notably in the Residences of Cheribon, Tagal, Samarang, and Ranjoemas, even with leases of twenty-five years. It is by these means, especially that tea plantations have been formed; and they have been so well worked, that, at the expiration of the term, the lands could be re-let for an annual rent of 80, 100, and 130 francs the hectare [about 2½ acres]. The lease has a great advantage over perpetual grants, inasmuch as at the expiration of the term the land returns to the State, which disposes of it again to the profit of all. The revenue arising from the soil is the taxation. All the income can be applied to purposes of general interest, instead of being employed to satisfy the fancies of a few wealthy families. It is an actual realization of the system, advocated by the 'physiocrats,' of a single tax on land." Mr. Glynn then went on to speak of Rome, in connection with which country he showed how the land gradually passed into the hands of the few by force and fraud, and which drew forth from Tiberius Gracchus the exclamation:—"The wild beasts have their dens and lairs to resort to, but those who fight and shed their blood in defence of Italy have nothing but the light of the sun and the air which they breathe—houseless and homeless they wander in all directions with their wives and children," Pliny also said—"The large estates have ruined Italy;" and the condition of the present Italian peasants is shown by the following extract from a petition of the peasants of Lombardy, in reply to a Ministerial circular warning them against the dangers of emigration :—" What do you mean by the nation, Signor Minister? Is it the multitude of the miserable? Then we indeed are the nation. Look at our pale and emaciated faces, at our bodies exhausted by excessive page 15 labour and insufficient food. We sow and reap the wheat, but never eat white bread. We cultivate the grape, but never drink its wine. We raise the cattle, but never taste meat. We are clad in rage. We dwell in done of infection. We freeze in winter, and in summer we starve. Our only nourishment on Italian soil is a handful of maize, made costly by the tax. The burning fever devours us in the dry regions, and in the wet ones we are the prey of the fever of the marsh. Our end is a premature death in the hospital or in our miserable cabins. And in spite of all this, Signor Minister, you recommend us not to expatriate ourselves! But can the land, where even the hardest labour cannot earn food be called a native country? " Coming nearer home, the speaker pointed out what immense advantages would have accrued had the State not in the first place alienated the land in the settlement of South Australia; instead of taxation there would have been a constantly increasing revenue from the soil. Now, however, under the existing system, small holdings were gradually being swallowed by the large estates, with the inevitable result that sooner or later all the dire consequences which had followed the toleration of private property in land in Europe would overtake this young country. Mr. Glynn in concluding spoke as follows :—The President and Mr. Webster have told you of the depth of wretchedness in which thousands are sunk in the great cities of civilization as a result of this institution of private property in land. What have the recent Commissions upon the housing of the poor disclosed to us? Are there not millions to whom, if I may borrow a quotation from the President's address, "existence, not the ceasing of it, is death;" millions whose lives are one long, dull, dreary, and joyless struggle against ever-pressing want? To them might be applied the words which Carlyle spoke of the ilean and haggard victims of French feudalism:—"Dreary, languid they struggle in their obscure remoteness; their hearth cheerless; their diet thin. For them in this life rises no Era of hope; hardly now in the other; if it be not hope in the gloomy rest of death, for their faith, too, is failing. Untaught, uncomforted, unfed !" And do you think that this state of affairs is to have no ending; that for ever the Angel of Death is to hang over the sleep of the poor, and that the Kingdom of God, which Christ promised, is never to be realised on this earth. I refuse to believe it. A better time must come. A great deal of the misery and suffering in this world is no doubt the result of individual depravity, but far more of unjust institutions; and whenever we can lay our hands upon one, like this, and say "this institution does not allow equal opportunities to all to sink or swim in this world," it becomes our immediate duty to get it abolished. I say our immediate duty, for it is cowards and slaves only who will wait until the issue is no longer doubtful. The position is well put in these words of Lowell—

They are slaves who fear to speak
For the fallen and the weak;
They are slaves who will not choose,
Hatred, scoffing, and abuse,
Rather than in silence shrink,
From the truth they needs must think;
They are slaves who dare not be
In the right with two or three.