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The article presents a discussion on immigration into Australia after the Second World War. Between 1947 and 1956, over one million immigrants arrived in Australia. This represents an average annual increase of about 1.1 per cent in the total population of the continent. With the exception of Israel, the rate at which these immigrants poured in was the highest of any country. Sustained immigration, plus the equally fast natural growth of about 1.3 per cent annually, should result in a total population of 10 million in about 1960. In 1946, similar to Great Britain's White Paper on full employment, the Commonwealth government of Australia issued its White Paper on Employment. This paper established high and stable employment as the principal objective of economic policy. The original immigration policy has hardly at all been considered in relation to the full employment goal of the Welfare State. In fact, economic motivation became prominent only after humanitarian and national defense reasons of the early post-war Operation Welcome more or less ran out.

The article comments on a series of articles published in the last few years in the Australian magazine "Progress," by A.R. Hutchinson of Melbourne, that focuses on studies made by the Land Values Research Group of which Hutchinson is director of research. Hutchinson classifies the Australian states into two groups based on the proportionate burden of taxes on land values. The first group of states consists of Queensland, New South Wales, and Western Australia. In all of these, local real estate taxes are, in general, levied on land values only. Land-value taxes in Queensland take for the public, he estimates, more than half of the annual rental value of the land; in New South Wales nearly a third; in Western Australia about a sixth. Attention is called to the fact that those districts in South Australia and Victoria, which do tax land values as such, are the districts which contributed most to their states' better showing than Tasmania. Thus, in Victoria, although at the 1921 census only 16 percent of the state population was in the fourteen districts rating land values, these districts accounted for 46 per cent of the total increase in dwellings for the State between the two census years.

This article presents the author's views on U.S. political economists Henry George's Australian tour. Henry George and his wife's arrival in Australia had a deep significance for both of the Americans. For his wife it was a return to her native country which she had not seen since she was five years old. For Henry George it was a visit to the land of enlightenment. This great Pacific island had held particular interest for him ever since, as a lad of fifteen, he had sailed to Melbourne. But it was not until after his own awakening to economic and political injustices that he looked with hope towards this country where the secret ballot had originated, where railroads and telegraph systems were publicly owned, and where savings banks and parcel post were part of the postal service. Their reception in Sydney was enthusiastic. George had to make a brief speech from his carriage to a huge crowd in front of the Town Hall, and then another and longer one inside, where he was officially welcomed by Mayor Sydney Burdekin and by city and colonial dignitaries.

IT WOULD SEEM then that the achievements of countries like Australia and New Zealand are worthy of emulation. Much constructive work, of course, is being done in the United States. For instance, the College of Agriculture at the University of Wyoming has succeeded in adding 3 pounds to the weight of the fleece during the past five to ten years by instructing Wyoming sheepmen how to breed large, sturdy sheep that bear low-shrinkage, high-quality wool. The government also is expanding its research in breeding and marketing practices; but unfortunately, the government seems to have the unhappy faculty of nullifying its constructive efforts by destructive activities. For example, long and short hedging in wool and wool top futures against price uncertainties is a legitimate instrument that wool growers, wool dealers and manufacturers can use to protect themselves from financial loss, but this was made more or less difficult in 1946 by the ceiling prices and the actions of the CCC. But if wool growing is to survive in this country, it must retain its traditional characteristic of freedom, for from the very beginning of time, the pastoral life has always been the freest element in any country's economy. Thus the sheep farmers must be taught to help themselves, as they must learn more about their business and give the market what it wants. But they cannot gain this knowledge by crouching behind trade barriers and leaning on subsidies, for in the last analysis, competition is the only real educator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]