ME PYKE AT OPHIR.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1261, 30 April 1886, Page 3

ME PYKE AT OPHIR.

■ TO TUB I edjtok.

Sir— At Mr Pyke’s meeting at Ophir, in answer to a question as to whether it would not be better to manufacture our wool and such like raw material here, than import the manufactured from abroad, he replied, 11 That we could not possibly compete with Great Britain, as wages there were at starvation point, and he would be very sorry to nee them so reduced here." So that we are to infer that the result of this grand panacea, as it was once thought, his been simply to reduce the manufacturing working classes to starvation. And is this a desirable example to follow ? Surely Protection could not bring about a worse state of things than this ? The great benefit of Freetrade, as stated by its advocates, is that it reduces the price of everything, and thus enables a man to get more for his money ; that his money will go farther than it otherwise would, But they forget that he will have less money to purchase with. I know that it is a common fallacy with the working man and the farmer that it is a grand thing to see things cheap- that is, everything but the article which they themselves have to sell, their labour or their produce. That of course must be dear. They forget that if other articles get low in price so also must that which they have to dispose of. The fact is that dear and ehean are merely relative terms. No matter how cheap an article may be, it is still too dear for him who has not the means to purchase it, and it is -not in England alone ; we can see it here at our own doors that cheapness alone floes not constitute good times. Never since tho establishment of the Colony has the price of all tho necessaries of life been cheaper than during the last two or three years, and yet, strange to say, never were worse times known. How do Freetraders explain this? The only class which really derives any benefit from low prices is that with fixed incomes. What the laboring and producing population require is steady employment and ready markets at remunerative rates and prices This it is which constitutes good times, and wh ;ther Freetrade or Protection is most likely to this s'ate of things in this Colony, is a question which cannot be so slightly disposed of as Mr Pyke and other Colonial Freetrade advocates seem to think, notwithstanding the authority of Mr John Bright is on their side, who after all is only one of that nation of “thirty millions, mostly"fools,” as one of their own prophets styles them. Trusting that I do not intrude too much on your valuable Space, I am, etc.,