THE FARMERS AND PROTECTION

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1970, 15 October 1888, Page 3

THE FARMERS AND PROTECTION

At the conclusion of Mr Walker's post* sessional address on Friday evening, Mr James Kelr fasked the spaiker to ex plain how he arrived at thu opinion whloh ho bad expressed m the House while speaking on the Tariff Bill that farmers would be the largest gainers from A Proteotlvepolioy.

Mr Walker did notreoolleot saying ihat the farmers would be tho largest gainers though he held that they would bent fit largely. Mr Purnoll-- 1 * Yes ynu did— it appears Id 'Hansard.'" Mr Walker had noi looked at the report of h[t speech m "Eansatd" recently, but hie w;s qalte prepared to give his reasons for his belief that the farming Intereat would benefit largely under a Protective policy and would do so at length If the meeting wao disposed to listen. He feared though that they would hardly be prepared to go ioto the qaestion exhaustively at that late hour, and he m'ght add that he had hoped that the question had beeo definitely settled, so far bb New Zealand waa oon earned, for some timo to come, and thai Protectionists and Freetraders, like thu Hdn and tha lamb, would be o ntont I" lie down In pc? Os tog ther. (Heath »r.) Pc would, however, give them bowo of the reasons wbloh had led him to tho conclusion which he had expressed. First, then, tho farmers must thrive when the rest of the community wore mtk-ng money for the rest of the community muit consume the farmers' produoa, an ! secondly, they had it on the oldest and beat authority that of all marked the most satisfactory waa the home market — that vai to lay, the local market, tho market nearest their own doora. The mcr* fact of having a settled market fora certain proportion of their procfaoo gaye to the fa mers who supplied that markej a stable resouroe and incidentally to the progress of local oentrea of population the value of the farmer's holding ro.>e In proportion The existence of industrial oentres had the effect of increasing the amount of cultivation aronnd them, and Induced the cultivating of the soil m the most connomical and intelligent manner. The areas aronnd those oentree wore made to yield more than was the case whare farmers were cultivating for consumer* m Enrols. A manufacturing population waa •> population which had good wages and liked to live well, a population which consumed largely aboyo the average, and the more therefore that the manufacturing population was Increased the more the farmers would benefit; If things had gone on ai they had been going tbelr towns would have beeu depleted, and the tillers of tho soil would have been left tr> pay tho taxea. Every artisan who came among them, every new Industry started meant so muoh taken o# the shoulders of tboao who lived by cultivating the Ifkod, and ho repeated tht>t if things had gooj op a« they had been going the cultivators of the poll would have been left m a post* ion of great difficulty. If under the new Tariff Industries extended and Improved, population would increase, and wealth would lnoreftse In the towns, and the country people must benefit. He maintained that the result of protection was to lower the prices of manufactured articles m the long run, and he believed that nuder Protection everything that the farmer uses would ultimately be reduoed m price m aplto of the Tariff, The farmers of tha United States were well satisfied with Protection— (A voiae "No.") He Mr Walker believed that they were, and all he could aay was tbat If they were not then they were bigger fools than he took them for. And here he might add that he knew that Freetraders generally looked upon all Protection! a' s as fools, but seeing that nine-tenth*, if not nineteen* twentieths of the population of the civilised world were Protectionists he fancied the Freetraders were assuming too muoh and had perhaps got the saddle on tho wrong horse. England was tho only part of the world, except a few commercial entrepots where Freetrade had sway ; other coaotries, farming oountrlos as well as manufacturing countries went m for protection; A Freetrade polioy doubtless suited England at the time of .the repeal of theoorn lawß but ho was not so snre that it was suited to her now. He had read recently a stirring speech delivered by that great Freetrader John Bright at the time of the Corn Law agitation and he drew a moving plotnre of the sufferings of the people for want of bread; but oircumstanaes altered [oases and had nothing been dono to deyplope our lccU Industries fjast ss moving a picture might have been drawn of the sufferings of thousands m this colony for want of work. But lie hid perhaps trespassed too long In his reply to the question and ho would now merely add tho expression of a hope that when they had experienced > the benefiolal effects of a Protective Tariff the freetraders would not be aorry if they were proved %o bp In the wrong m spite of themselves of theft d.ogmas and prejudices— (Applause.)