Inappropriate Appropriation. Some Neo-Georgist Comments on the Eureka Stockade

Abstract

In his lecture tour in Australia in 1890 Henry George argued that all citizens have equal rights to the natural resources of their country. He was critical of the monopoly rights given in Australia to private companies for coal mining, but did not object to the private appropriation of gold by goldminers. He does not appear to have made any comments on the violent conflict that occurred in 1854 between goldminers and public authorities near the town of Ballarat where miners had erected fortifications known as the Eureka Stockade.