the progressive heights of 1910
through the long vista of years, numbering upwards of four-fifths of a
century, I rejoice at the progress the world has made. Side by side
with the development of my State my life has slowly unfolded itself. My
connection with many of the reforms to which is due this development
has been intimate, and (I think I am justified in saying) oftentimes
helpful. While other States of the Commonwealth and the Dominion of New
Zealand have made remarkable progress, none has eclipsed the rapid
growth of the State to which the steps of my family were directed in
1839. Its growth has been more remarkable, because it has been
primarily due to its initiation of many social and political reforms
which have since been adopted by other and older countries. "Australia,
lead us further," is the cry of reformers in America. We have led in so
many things, and though America may claim the honour of being the
birthplace of the more modern theory of land values taxation, I rejoice
that South Australia was the first country in the world with the
courage and the foresight to adopt the tax on land values without
exemption. That she is still lagging behind Tasmania and South Africa
in the adoption of effective voting, as the only scientific system of
electoral reform, is the sorrow of my old age. The fact that South
Australia has been the happy hunting ground of the faddist has
frequently been urged as a reproach against this State. Its more
patriotic citizens will rejoice in the truth of the statement, and
their prayer will probably be that not fewer but more advanced thinkers
will arise to carry this glorious inheritance beneath the Southern
Cross to higher and nobler heights of physical and human development
than civilization has yet dreamed of or achieved. The Utopia of
yesterday is the possession of today, and opens the way to the Utopia
of to-morrow. The haunting horror of older civilizations--divorcing the
people from their natural inheritance in the soil, and filling the
towns with myriads of human souls dragged down by poverty, misery, and
crime--is already casting its shadow over the future of Australia; but
there is hope in the fact that a new generation has arisen untrammelled
by tradition, which, having the experience of older countries before
it, and benefiting from the advantages of the freer life and the
greater opportunities afforded by a new country, gives promise of
ultimately finding the solution