WAGES,AND AMERICAN FARMERS ON PROTECTION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1895, 17 July 1888, Page 3

WAGES, AND AMERICAN FARMERS ON PROTECTION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — In your Unue of last night I notice a letter by Mr Bellhouaa. Mr B. appears to think the people of Ashburton rery much behind the age, and be deemit his duty to ssnd us a few figures ihttt can, he says, apeak for them elves. The conclusion Mr B wishes vi <6 draw from his first act t-f figures is, that ■" becauae of Protection m Amerioa and Vlotorla, wages m those countries are much higher than m England," Mr B. must be perfectly well aware < f the fact tbat there Is nothing to be proved by the figures In question, the onnditlona of England acd the other ooumries mentioned being ao very different, The following figurea will show at a glance why wages are higher m Amortca than m England :—

When the population of the United Statei is as dense as that of the United Kingdom, that will be abort 700.000,000. Mr Bellbonse may depend upon It the wages of labor will be leas than m England at present, ao matter how much protection they may have. If Mr Bellhonse would prepare a eet of fignres showing the wages m the different European conn tries, lnoluding England, and ahowing the amoant of protection m each, your readera would have something to the point, and if the aame conclusion can be taken from tham as Mr Bellhoase wiabea us to draw from those m question I think Mesara Saury, Brown and Walker would be shut up on that point.

Mt fiellhouae next goes on to show by another set of "speaking figures" that the American farmers have benefited to an enormous ex'ont by Protection. I maintain that these figures also Bra demb, for the simple reason that the prioe of the produce of the American farmer is regulated by the prioe m Europe, where the surplus produce has to be sold. If Mr Bellhouse can show that the price of wheat was ever higher m Amerioa than m England be will again soore one on Messrs Sbury, Brown, and Walker.

1 have five plain questions to put to Mr Bellhoase and his league, and I think I aaa perfectly safe m promising them the tupport of Messrs Shury, Brown and Walker, and several others provided they can give no satisfactory answers.

• Ist. Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Fawcett, aud Henry George all condemn Prctsation m the moit unqualified language. Co Mr Bellbonse and his friends think they did not understand what they wrote about ?

, 2nd. Ii it posiible to make a nation rich by taxing It ? 3rd If protection between different countries is good, why is It not good between different localities of the same country ? 4th? Do men want work for Kg own Bake or do they merely want to live with as little labor and other inconvenience as possible. sib, If it 1b a calamity for the people of any coontry to obtain cheap goods from another country, and the chaaper the goods the greater the oalamity, how can we express the wretohedneaa of those who might obtain all they wanted fot nothing.-- 1 am, etc., James Kbir.

TO THC EDITOR.

Bib,— ld reply to Mr David Bellboase's letter which is very nice — Perhaps as Mr Bdsn George would not answer my first question Mr Beilhooie will :— *' Is a large increase m rates and taxei conducive to the advantage and prosperity of any country V This was afterwards varied to suit Mr* George :— '* Is a large increase m taxation oondactve to the advantage and prosperity of any ooantry V Mr Eden George said the qaestlon was not fair and it was not answered.

w Bat he explained Protection as he understood It, and as it suited him. He told a& that owing to the new tariff he iras going to start a small factory himself la Ohrlstohnrch to manufacture dry colodlon plates to supply the whole of New Zealand ; he also told us he proposed \o employ eight hands, probably girls, to eventually be increased to twelve; that under the old tarif! these plates were •old at 3s per do^n, but he would eel\ them, protected by the new tariff, at 4* 6d per dojsan $ and that ho would dlsp ge of fiis surplui stock m Victoria. When I reminded him Victoria was also heavily protected, he further imformed ua he could soil them there under ooab price, leaving as to Infer that all Nsir Zsaland was to be taxed for photographs at the r*te of SO per cent over present prio- f , to enable eight girls to live, and hjmseli to make a fortune.

Jt is hardly worth going biok to 1846 for prices of eggs, •specially as Mr Bellhouse does not mention the tima of year the two prices were for. But I giro you ■n extract from a leading New York journal, quoted from a late "Argus," 23rd May last :-

11 Protection has worked bo admirably that of more than eleven hundred ■tetmen which carried nearly fifty-one million bushels of American grain to a foreign market, m 1887 we owned one ; of leyenty-fonr sailing Vessels engaged ' In ine'gtrge business, we owned oije". If the filgh tariff men can Have their own way a little longer, that*iteam.er and that Ballot will both disappear." Ia the iron trade Proteotlon does not Appear to work well »t present. Ia telegrams of this lisne, 16th Jaly, of your valuable paper there li a beading :— "IMMENSE SJEIKE. 11 Jail the iron mills m Western America with the exception of twelve are closed owing to a wages ditpote. Oae hundred thousand workmen are afLoted by the ptrike. 1 ! pomrnent Is ne.edleis. I am etc, A. H. Shurt. Aibbortoo, July 16th 1888.

"imme;

Sj»,— ld yonr last night's issue J notice a letter from the Hon. Sea. of the OhrUtohnroh Projection League, intended no doubt to annihilate those who bad the temerl'y to oppose the writer's darling project of starting a branch of the Protection League m Aahburton, and like all other officials he hurls at our heads a lo: pf figure*. Ev6n that I would not mind if tbey had been something new, In' seeing the same tables had to do duty m your paper only two months ago, he has only given ua. a treat what the Scotch would term "oauld kail het again," and I think if he had looked up your files of 'tke last two months instead of looking at the report of the failure of hfs delegate's million he wonld see that we are not jußt io f*r behlaa, although we are fifty-three fnllei frouT : the centre of civilisation aLd iupremaoyi "- " 1 can aoaroely enter into dlsousslon with, yonr oorrespondenPwithout the risk pf repeating myaelf, but if he would kindly look over my former letters In your paper and give as his opinion on them I may join Issue with him. But m the meantime, while he la at it I would like htm to give qi a few wore o( hla figarei,

j uch t'i;r lne<aroa as the following: — He | gives us the rate of wages In England at I the present time. Would he j lat place . eppo l<e this the rate paid 40 years ago to toe same trad< a, to show tf the wageß have faien or risen under Freetrade there, and he mlqht then do the B»ma for A merles »rd Victoria, to show how it stands slnca thny got Protection B?tt<?r aMll wru-d he give us the rate of wages p«ld InF ay tr*deNew Z aland for the la 3( 20yp»rs, and place that alongside of protected Victoria for the same period. He also forgot to point cot tbat m America the time per week la from 60 to 70 hours, while io England it Is only f'om 51 to 64 hoars, and m New Zealand' 4B hours. I enoloie you a cutting from the ''Otago W-tness" "f Friday l«Bt, which I think will show that Amerioa is not yet all that your | correspondent would have us believe : — 11 According to a report from the British Minister at Washington, which h*B b?en laid before Parliament (aays the " Pail Mall Gazette"), elnoe the beginning o f 1887 there have been 1000 striken In the United States, and of the 4 0,000 men engaged m them 25,000 to 50 000 are still out. The moat serioua wan that of the New Jersey coal-handlers, which Involved a loss la wagaa to those engaged of mote than £500,000, The coat to the workers of the Pesnsylvanlan cokeworkers' atrlke of the spring, (a whioh 13,000 men were encaged for 10 weeks, was about £200.000 io wages. Mora than two-thlrda of the strikes between January and July 1887 were fruitless, and only brought loaa and suffering to those engaged m them. As a whole, about 38 per cent, or more than a th'rd of the strikers In 1887, snoceeded In getting their demands, againat 20 per cent In 1886. It is calculated tbat nearly 10,000 000 day a' work and wages were lost." This, Sir, Is the state of things In the very country that, according to the Protectloniat creed, ought to be a Garden uf Eden to the working man.

Here is another from the same paper, which I think it would be well for all farn.ers to read, aa It will show them what to expeot from Protection : — '• At a meet* Ing of the Victorian Chamber of Manufactures, the qaestlon of Protection to farmers was discussed, when it was resolved — *ThaS while taking a deep interest m the welfare of the farmers, the Chamber of Manufactures cannot support a policy which is calculated to increase the price of bread and mea*.'" This is what the protected manufacturers of Melbourne themselves think of Protection — that it increases the prlca of the article proteoted, and as a piece of bare-faoed selfishness I think it beats all past records, and yet your c irrespondent will talk aboat dopes. —l am, etc, Freetrade;

G*EAT TT.R.AI BBITiIN. Fquare miles 3,034,000 120.879 Population 60,000,000 35,000,000 Population to Bqaaremlle 20 290 National Debt per head £6 £22 Coit of Armamenti £9,400,000 £28 900 000 Paapera 225,000 1,037,000