ald to write on any important subject, and I wrote on
this. It appeared, like a previous article on Howell's "Conflicts of
Capital and Labour," as an unsigned article. A new review, The
Victorian, had been started by Mortimer Franlyn, which paid
contributors; and, now that I was a professional journalist, I thought
myself entitled to ask remuneration. I sent to the new periodical,
published in Melbourne, a fuller treatment of the book than had been
given to the two newspapers, under the title of "A Californian
Political Economist." This fell into the hands of Henry George himself,
in a reading room in San Francisco, and he wrote an acknowledgment of
it to me. In South Australia the first tax on unimproved land values
was imposed. It was small--only a halfpenny in the pound, but without
any exemption; and its imposition was encouraged by the fact that we
had had bad seasons and a falling revenue. The income tax in England
was originally a war tax, and they say that if there is not a war the
United States will never be able to impose an income tax. The separate
States have not the power to impose such a tax. Henry George said to me
in his home in New York:--"I wonder at you, with your zeal and
enthusiasm, and your power of speaking, devoting yourself to such a
small matter as proportional representation, when you see the great
land question before you." I replied that to me it was not a small
matter. I cannot, however, write my autobiography without giving
prominence to the fact that I was the pioneer in Australia in this as
in the other matter of proportional representation.

CHAPTER XVI.

SORROW AND CHANGE.

In the long and cheerful life of my dear mother there at last came a
change. At 94 she fell and broke her wrist. The local doctor (a
stranger), who was called in, not knowing her wonderful constitution,
was averse from setting the wrist, and said that she would never be
able to use the hand. But I insisted, and in six, weeks she was able to
resume her knitting, and never felt any ill effects. At 95 she had a
fall, apparently without cause, and was never able to stand again. She
had to stay in bed for the last 13 months of her life, with a gradual
decay of the faculties which had previously been so keen. My mother
wanted me with her always. Her talk was all of times far back in her
life--not of Melrose, where she had lived for 25 years, but of
Scoryhall (pronounced Scole), where she had lived as a girl. I