HENRY S. KENT moved that the testimony be laid upon the table until next year, the time being too limited to further discuss it now. WHITTIER FULTON and WM. W. KENT Spoke in favor of this motion and it was adopted.

The time for adjournment having arrived the session closed with a duet by Miss EMMA MENDENHALL and CHAS. SWAYNE.

SEVENTH-DAY.-Afternoon Session.

There was a very large attendance when the afternoon session opened with a duet by Miss Sara Huey and Charles Swayne, many of those present being obliged to stand.

The presiding clerk said: It is our good fortune this afternoon to sit at the feet of the Prophet of the Single Tax. I know you will all listen with much pleasure to HENRY GEORGE who will now speak to us.

THE SINGLE TAX.

MR. GEORGE said: I am glad to have the opportunity to speak here this afternoon. I shall speak simply and plainly, endeavoring to answer any questions and meet any objections which may arise.

I am accustomed to associate the ideas of Friends with the ideas of plainness, fairness and sobriety, and a desire to see the truth and to stand fearlessly for it. This meeting is linked with that great struggle for human liberty for which the Friends have stood. Those who believe as I do regard the struggle at present raging only a continuation of the former one. No one can fail to note the growing disquietude, the growing unrest, the growing injustice which advances with our civilization. One advance after another goes on, one discovery succeeds another, and it grows harder instead of easier for the vast majority of men to live. The struggle for mere existence becomes more and more intense and we feel that the opportunity to work is a boon. The cry for work rang the past winter all over the country and any one who had it was called upon to furnish something for the unemployed. By the unemployed, I do not mean men too lazy to work, but men able,

willing and anxious to work, but who could find nothing to do. The new problems that are presenting themselves as the years roll on clearly show that something is wrong. What is it? We Single Tax men say that man is a land animal, and only from the land can he draw the necessities of life; that all the wealth of the things man produces is but land of some form changed by labor; that labor in that sense is the producer of value; that labor without land is useless; that the land necessary to the use of all men has been passed by laws into the ownership of some men; that labor is thus disinherited; that it must pay for the privilege of using the land; that the only way these social difficulties can be remedied is we shall assert, the right of all men to the use of their natural element, land. We do not propose to divide the land up or to prevent men from the exclusive ownership of land. What a man produces from the common stock, the raw material of the nation, is unquestionably his to do with whatsoever he pleases, provided he does not infringe the rights of others. In a civilization like ours the absolute ownership of land must be guaranteed. No man will sow and cultivate a field of grain unless he is reasonably sure he will harvest the crop. We do not propose to interfere with this, but we do propose to abolish all taxes on the products of labor, and to take for public purposes a tax on land values exclusive of the labor of the owner. If we do this what each man will pay will depend not on what he has done to improve his property, but on the valuation of his land. The value of land irrespective of improvement is a premium value. It differs from that value which arises from building, draining, etc. It is a value which comes with the growth of the community. In taking this we would open to labor an abundance of opportunity. We have in this country less than 70,000,000 of people on a space which would comfortably support the millions of Europe. Go where you will in the United States you will find monopolization, men holding opportunities, not with the expectation of using them themselves, but expecting to get a payment from those who will use them. By our system we propose to make this unprofitable and hence undesir

able. Labor only needs opportunity. In all our states there are men who want to work or who want to furnish other men with work but they must first buy a piece of land, and then pay the state a larger tax because they improve it. We want to tax men not for what they do, but for the natural advantages they possess over other men.

I have set forth as clearly as it was given me the practices which we Single Tax men wish to bring into effect and will now be pleased to answer any questions which may arise.

"What would our friend do with the millionaire who does not necessarily own any land ?" was the first question asked by MAHLON BROSIUS.

If

Such a man could not be found. His wealth would be largely represented by railroad stocks and bonds, and while we would not tax these directly we would tax the land on which the railroad is built and thus he would be reached. he owned real estate it would of course be taxed in like manThe forty fold millionaire is a monstrosity as is the tramp and they really belong to the same category. There are few men who can earn a million dollars, no man can earn forty millions. It means simply that one man steals the labor of many men.

"Suppose there are two farms, side by side, of equal value except that one has improvements, and the other has not, how would the tax on these be adjusted?" was the next question.

We do not want

They would be taxed an equal amount. to make a man pay for the privilege of improving his property, and a premium on idleness. If we had three lots of ground equally valuable on the first of which stands a good house, on the second a poor house, and on the third no house at all, these properties would pay an equal tax.

"If one farm was naturally fertile and another of equal size beside it was naturally poor soil, would they be taxed alike ?"

No, they would be taxed according to the value of the land.

"How would this system benefit the unemployed?"

It would remove the tax from those who would give employment to mechanics. Under our present laws it a man builds a shop or factory he is immediately taxed for the value of the factory. We are to-day nearer civil war than at any time since the early days of the rebellion. Look at the coal miners who are striking now. They are clearly standing for what is not right. No man has a right to say to another, "you must employ me" or "you shall not work," but every man has a right to work for himself as he pleases. There are abundant coal fields elsewhere, but these miners cannot go to work there because the owners hold their lands at such enormous prices. At present these lands which are not worked are not taxed nearly so heavily as worked lands. Under the Single Tax it would become unprofitable to hold lands in this way, and hence labor would at once be in demand. We would assess taxes in the same way it is done now, and it would be much easier and more accurate than at present because all tax on buildings and personal property would be abolished, and only the land which is in plain sight of everyone would be assessed. You can ascertain the value of land much easier than any other value, for it cannot be hidden or run away with.

"Would this system not largely increase the tax of the farmers of Chester county?"

The tax on the land here in Chester county would probably be increased, but taking the country at large it would be less. The largest land values are in the city.

For years we have been seeing these difficulties of the increasing numbers of paupers and millionaires coming upon us, and these were the evils which were the ruination of the old Eastern nations. In early times in England nearly all the farmers owned their land, but now the English farmer who tills his own land is very rare, and this is becoming equally true in America. "Suppose a man was engaged in whale fishing would he be taxed?"

All men engaged on the water would go free. This system would be gotten in operation by simply taxing land val

ues and not the improvements on land. A speculator who had invested in land expecting it to rise in value would lose, but it would not be much of a loss for he would only lose a "would be" or a prospective gain, and the gain on the other side would be enormous, for the tendency would be to largely increase the production of wealth. You cannot right a wrong without doing some one a relative injury. See how the slave owners lost by the war. There is no possible way of changing from the wrong to the right without injuring those who have profited by the wrong.

The cost of collecting taxes would be decreased and far more honesty would prevail. We cannot afford to tax honesty which we do to-day by taxing a man for money which he is honest enough to say he has at interest. Deceit is largely practiced because the whole system is based on a wrong principle. A man feels that he has done no injury to the community in erecting a fine house and he instinctively feels that he is being wronged when taxed for his improvement.

The southern States have greatly improved themselves by exempting manufactories from taxation for a term of years. We propose to utilize this same principle upon a much larger scale. We will largely increase the production of wealth by not taxing its production. Is it not foolish to tax this increased production when it is this which makes us prosperous?

Mr. Burrows, of England, came here a few years ago with the idea of establishing a branch chemical labratory. He found a desirable situation near New York City, but was asked $1,000,000 for it by the owner. "Why" he said, "this is only a small rocky piece of land and you have never improved it, why should you ask me so much for it ?" "No" the owner replied, "I have never improved it but I have been holding it to make you pay for the privilege of doing so." Mr. Burrows went back to England and has never established his house here.

The Single Tax system is essentially just, while our present system is essentially unjust. It is a wrong system to tax a man according to the protection he gets from the courts. Our civilization is a natural thing, and taxation is a necessary