FREETRADE IN NEW SOUTH WALES

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1691, 20 October 1887, Page 2

FREETRADE IN NEW SOUTH WALES

— .. ■ . » .-■ The " Sydney Bulletin," August 2?, gives the following account of Freetrade m New South Wales :—" New South Walea just now is the exhibitor of a new phenomenon m her financial state. Buslceesis admittedly very bad: exoept In afew departments of trade things oould hardly be m a worse case. Houses by tho thousand aro tenpntleas, shops are let only with the utmost difficulty, and frequently at greatly deoreased rents. The revenue generally is falling off eerlously, tho payment of arrears of pastoral rent due In former yeara being only jmt sufficient to balance the deficit iv taxation, Thousands of men are vainly seeking employment, and. sooo moro are maintained by tho charity of Government relief worka. Taken all round business and enterprise have not been at ao low a standard for many yeara past. Yet at the same time —and thia factoonstltuteo the phenomenon —-money Is cheap, growing cheaper, and ii very plentiful. State Investments are snapped up as soon as offered, dividend. paying shares are steadily appreciating and at 4 per cent the banks- get mora money than they can profitably employ." The lame journal says :-» Hitherto there have been large rewards for fiuanI oial enterprise ; therefore cheap money meant extension of business, Bat now by the restrictive operation of Freetrade many avenues of enterprise have been permanently blocked. JForelgn capitalist* "PPPjy the gt.ods which onr own eaplte! ahould be employed In producing. Money now is oheap becauße its uses are limited and its oheapness is therefore not a sfe_ of national prosperity but of commercial depression. . . , Our anemployed oapjtai no less than our unemployed labor is proof of the harmful Influence of [ competition with foreign manufeotarti— competition whioh limits enterprise at th* same time that it curtails the sam of em 7 ploy ment available.