The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1884. The Indian Markets.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1414, 26 December 1884, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1884. The Indian Markets.

The information which has been furnished by Sir James Fergusson to Sir Julius Vogel in reference to the Indian markets for colonial produce cannot be encouraging to the Colonial Treasurer, but should be highly instructive. Sir James avoids throwing cold water himself, but he forwards communications from the Chamber of Commerce, the Trades Association and the Municipal Commissioner of Bombay, which all concur in giving facts and figures that show that there cannot be the slightest opening, either for our meat or for our woollen goods in that direction. Sir Julius, and indeed most of our nominally responsible advisers or rulers during the past fourteen years, have proved proficient in the construction of financial delusions, but in the plain hard facts that regulate commercial transactions they have occasionally appeared to occupy the position of infants, and of infants not very ready or willing to be instructed, either by their superiors or by the hard and unanswerable logic that never fails to guide the actions of men of clearer, though of less ambitious, and possibly of narrower views.

With meat, which the population of India considers superior to ours, at from twopence to threepence per pound, it does not require much sagacity to see at a glance, that India will never equal the London market, where good meat is retailed at ten pence and one shilling per pound. So that if, as asserted by Messrs Bucklev and Peter, we cannot make boiling down prices of our sheep in London we are not likely to realise any very satisfactory returns from India. The lean carcasses that disfigure the butchers’ shops of Bombay or Ceylon may not suit our ideas of quality, but a tropical climate soon removes the taste for fat meat, and the North Russia! who would eagerly devour even a few pounds of candles in his native climate, would shudder at the sight of a fat steak after a few months’ residence in India. Thus, apart all caste or religious prejudices, it is idle to hope that our fatter meat will ever present any superior attractions to the Indian consumer. The same climatic reasons would to some extent operate against any extensive demand for our woollen fabrics, but still there would be a demand for more than New Zealand could supply, if her social and political conditions were such as to enable her to compete in the open market with any production principally representing labor. But New Zealand has never yet come down to that level, and we may hope that it will be long before she will do so. Whilst any man can dig gold from the earth himself or any company can extract it from crushed stone ; whilst our temperate climate and our exemption from all destructive quadrupeds, makes meat and wool growing an easy task, and a virgin soil enables us to compete even with India and America in the production of wheat, the laborer of New Zealand is not likely to be employed at a rate ot wages that will produce either cloth, iron, linen, silk, sacks or carriages, at a price that will bear high freights, and then compete in an open market with other countries where men think themselves fortunate when earning two shillings a day, and with others where high skill, backed by capital and machinery, is procured for less than sixpence an hour. Of course the longer high wages can be obtained in any country the better for the country. The very essence of political prosperity is shown where the mass of the population, and not merely a few fortunate individuals, can have all their reasonable wants abundantly supplied ; but we must never forget that wages higher than those obtained by other countries, precludes the possibility of export for the products of labor, except such as can be produced under some exceptional advantages of situation, soil or climate, not enjoyed by countries with which we have to compete. Whilst we are afraid to let our woollen factories compete in our own colony, with the manufacturers of the world, handicapped as all rivals must be with long freights, insurance, exchange, commissions, and all the drawbacks that surround a foreign and far distant competitor, it is absurd to suppose that we can under sell “ Yorkshire and Germany ” in the open market of India. If we could match them in India where our advantages would be fewer and our expenses greater than theirs, what chance could they have against us in our own country ? We mgst Jearn to walk alone, without the go-cart of protection, before we can entertain such I ami'to° us projects as that of competing with Manch PSter the markets of the world. Meantime, the possible necessity for preparing for such severe competition should teach us that our manufactories should be, not bolstered up and demoralised by ir judicious and excessive protection, but braced and liberated by freedom from every avoidable tax, imposition or fetter, and that the best friends of our colonial industries are not those who would drive away their best customers by the reckless imposition of 20 per cent, duties on the agricultural population, but those who would exempt the

tanners from every unnecessary burden. America, with the best wood in the world, with iron equal to any, and with heads certainly second to none, does not build her own ships nor manufacture her own cotton under the cloud of extreme protection, but easily “whips the universe ” with the only two articles she has never protected—her reaping machines and her watches.