We cannot deal in detail with the rest of the
debate, which included, however, a well-reasoned speech by Mr. Sonar Law ; but we would ask any of our readers who may feel inclined to support the Bill, and are in danger of being caught in the quicksands produced by the crude outpourings of Henry George's pseudo-economics, to bear in mind one or two plain facts. In the first place, material things such as sites and houses do not pay rates. When they are said to do so all that is meant is that the State measures its demands on certain individuals by the amount which they hold or occupy of such material things. Next, it must be remembered that the proper and just way to make men contribute to the rates is in proportion to their economic ability or wealth. But a man's wealth is not to be gauged by his possession of land, though it may be to some extent by the character of the house which he occupies. Finally, we must never forget that • "The real worth of anything Is just as much as it will bring,"
and that no amount of legislative manipulation or guessing by " sworn values " can alter this fact. If people would only bear these simple truths in mind, they would be in much less danger of being "strangled in the tide" of economic perversions.
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