Cromwell Argus. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1870.

Cromwell Argus, Volume 1, Issue 52, 9 November 1870, Page 4

Cromwell Argus. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1870.

We have great pleasure in giving on r readers a resume of a free trade speech d e _ livered in Congress by Mr Cox, member for New York. Our convictions are clearly expressed, and the points at issue between the protectionist and the free trader are so put as to show the advantages and disadvantages on both sides. And Mr Cox's appeal to facts and figures throughout gives his arguments all the greater \vei»ht. " Protection to native industry" is a piece of hollow and heartless cant. The League exposed it thirty years ago, and it was hissed oil' the stage in the old country as an outworn mockery. Colonial monopoly has brought it into use too late to be original. We could understand protection to native capital, to native minorities, to native unskilfulncss. H the question were to bo put upon this footing, the deluded thousands would see through the fallacy, and obliterate it from our Statute Book. The New Zealand trader asks the General Oovcrnment for an Act in his favour that shall prevent all fair competition. His motive is personal greed ; his plea is an increase of colonial wealth, and employment of labour. The image of protection is thus set up, and the shrine-makers demand that their craft shall bo protected by the Government, because from it they have their wealth. The workmen are told to close their cars against the now doctrine, to banish the apostles of free trade as dangerous to the whole craft, and to shout— Croat is protection! Great ih protection!

There would bo some show of reason in " protecting native industry" in the proper sense, as meaning habitual diligence—steady attention to business: the true meaning of the term. But while this is professed, something else is meant. What protection has the habitual worker ¥ Ho has to pay for all. His money is tiken and spent in cheapening the only article he can bring to the market. Labour is bought up in markets 16,000 miles away, and paid for at a high rate with the money accruing from native industry, for the purpose of underselling native industry at its own doors. If the worker complain ; if he say that the labour market in New Zcaland is at present overstocked ; that he has nothing but labour to sell, and cannot find a purchaser ; that what he contributes to the revenue should be spent in roadmaking and bridge-building for the convenience of those who are here, rather than spent in sending for others to swamp the New Zealand market and increase the population of Victoria, he is laughed at, and told he is out of his place ; he should not have come here. His visions of wealth are a delusion : he had no business to leave home with dreams "of streets paved with nuggets —of roast pigs meeting him at the wharf, plated, tabled, with silver cutlery to boot, asking him to eat and live. Thus industry is mocked and made to minister to its own humiliation, and capital is petted and protected. Whenever we meet with protection to native industry, it is to us what a layer of stable manure is to the hurdy-gurdy grinder in the street—a hint of sickness near, and a notice to pass on. ! Protection to native industry omits from j the reckoning, to build up the fortunes of , a few, thousands of the working classes, and then often fails in the attempt. Free trade is a plain, patent security against all j class plunder, and all its safety is from it- j j self. iVr Cox says :—" Before free trade j | in England, her exports were stationary, j j In 1843, they were less than £47,000,000. : In 1853, when free trade fairly began, her ! j exports were £97,250,000, double the ave- | rage of the twenty years of protection. In | | 1603, they were "£ 100,500,000 ; in 1808, J j more than £174,000,000. Under protec- ; tion, her carriage trade averaged about ! I §35,000,000 : under free trade it grew to j I the amazing sum of $250,000,000, employ- | ' ing thousands, and reaching to all parts of I the earth. Her imports have nearly kept | pace with her exports. And France has ] nearly equalled her in these two respects. ; No wonder she is making ships for every j nation under heaven but our own, and | even threatening to rival our oriental lines | on the Pacific. Her tariff is levied on very | few articles, while ours is levied on four ! j thousand ; and yet her customs revenue is only about £14,000.000 less than ours. I j Whenever she reduced her tariff, she in--1 creased her revenue, greatness, and wealth. | France did the same, and yet there was ! only a saltwater channel to protect each j against the other. But there is the whole | Atlantic, a natural protection of 10 per j cent., between England and the United j States. And yet, in the face of all these | facts, for which we can show chapter and | verse, there are some who can find our j prosperity only in our protective duties. j The member for Pennsylvania would opi pose all foreign competition with what we ! can produce at home. His doctrine respecting foreign goods is, though better and I cheaper, Protect! Prohibit! To be conj sistent, Mr Kelly would of course exclude | the daylight that comes to us, to the prejudice of lamp-makers, candle-makers, and all the traders in tallow, oil, matches, and kerosene. He would hold the national | market clear for the native producer against , the foreign importer of sunshine, which is | an employer of only cheap labour. What j business has the sun to supply us one half j of our time at such a rate as to inflict irreJ parable mischief on our gas manufacturers 1 Mr Kelly would say, ' Down with the sun ; up with a long and lasting night ; banish the insolent foreigner from our already glutted market ; home industry for ever against foreign importers in heaven or earth.' The member for Pennsylvania would have the Government pension his people. His rich supporters are but splenj did paupers upon public funds. He for- | gets who pays their score. All the GoJ vernment owes his people is security; and j that it owes to (ill—east, west, north, and | south. It is fraud to take from one to | help another. Government should hold j an even balance : labour and capital, deI mand and supply, will adjust themselves ; better without the help or hindrance of Government. When the gentleman asks for something for Pennsylvania, from whom floes he expect it 1 Have, not his friends there robbed the people of other States of every dollar over and ahovo what has been used for revenue ? Has he not robbed th 0 fanner who has bought his ploughs, th^

blacksmith who lias bought his hammers, I the carpenter who has bought his chisels?! Has ho not robbed the shipbuilder who! must have copper, iron, lumber, salt, can-| vas, and hemp for his ship 1"

It is rumoured that a concert is to come < in the current month, the proceeds ofMtiich are to be applied in liquidation.! ofWhe unpaid balance of law costs in tli J., case Regina v. Whetter. For the honour" and credit of the Cromwell district, "weij sincerely hope that the rumour will turn 1 out to be a reality. Much has been told N of us and trumpeted through the Province \ that is not true, and never was. But, 1 should we leave a public servant who hasj'j given years of unremitting and unrequited \\ service to the district in the grip of then lawyers, we should deserve the stigma of | all the false reports, and should have to ? take the heavier burden of such a crown-;; nig charge. But this can never come to I pass. The success of the promised pro-1 grrmme will vindicate the district Irom | the foul stain of ingratitude. And there would be something peculiarly fitting and graceful in concluding the last act in a | painful drama with a concert. ili'l Whetter has assisted in raising hundreds of pounds for deserving objects. An 1 appeal always found him ready. And now the dead body of a legal monstrosity is laid to rest, let a concert cancel the Pi charges, and let live hundred happy feet trample down and obliterate its grave forever. Let no man know of it henceforth. The disposal of four hundred tickets at| ■is each in Cromwell, one hundred at Bendigo, and fifty at Pembroke, at the foot of the Wanaka, would settle the whole thing. § And then it would be all the better to in- % elude the Nevis ; a concert there would be well received and worthily supported. We send them cadaverous-looking Chinamen f ; the Dunstan sends them dull builo:-';-teams, laden with goods—and bads : but ] there is no harmony in all this—nothing joyous, nothing jubilant. Let Croi.iu cli, % then, do the better thing, and cheer their I coming festivities with some good music;! and the Nevis will feel itself again included in the pale of civilisation, and still funning:'; a part of the animal variety known as homo.