LOCAL INDUSTRIES.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2394, 3 December 1870, Page 2

LOCAL INDUSTRIES.

To the Editor of the Evening Star. , Sir—“ Young Spiers” baa thought lit to reply to a letter addressed to you on the subject of onr “Local Industries.” Whether or not ho has bonefitted his case remains to be seen. It will be, I think, not diiilcult to show that the economical doctrines ho enunciates are not only false, but if generally adopted, would bo iu tho highest degree pernicious. Fortunately we hold some security against their adoption in the growing intelligence of the people, 1 en-

deavofed to show that the effect of imposing heavy duties on imported manufactured goods would be, not certainly to in reaso our revenue, but to establish high prices, and in a like ratio to impoverish the bulk of the people. Ido not hesitate to say that not one fact is brought forward to refute these propositions. “ Young Spiers” says—“ I will take Raich’s own figures, and set down the amount of LJ50,000 as representing tbo amount sent out of k this Province annually to England and America to enrich them, and give employment to hundreds of men, not one penny of which ever returns to the Province again. ” This is certainly a curious statement, and I quote it as illns*rating the kind of argument (?) by which my propositions are met by “ Young Spiers.” Either he is deceiving himself, or ho is deliberately insulting the comm >n sense of the people by a statement so palpably false as the one just quoted. The capital sent out of the Colony to secure manufactured goods does not involve a loss, but contributes to the national wealth. A transformation of c ipital certainly takes place, but we retain our capital intact. Wo get from England or America an equivalent in value for the amount expended, and tliis as much constitutes our national capital as holding the amount in gold in our own hands. To say, therefore, that “not a penny ever returns to the Province again,” is almost too absuul to need refutation. But it is necessary to revert to figures, in order to show that instead of sustaining a loss, we are immense gainers by our importation of manufactured goods. The goods we import for the hypothetical L 150,000, could not be purchased in the Colony and sold to the people for less than LIBO,OOO, or 20 per cent, beyond the present purchasing price. The difference between these two amounts —namely, L3o,ooo—represents the bona- fdr. gain to the people. But this is not all. There are many articles of artistic design and elaborate linish connected with the cabinet trade which c’onld not be produced in the Colony, I will not • say at all, but at even an increase of 50 per cent, on the English or American cost. JSTo one knows this better than “Young Spiers,” and I am not apprehensive of contradiction on this point. Assuming, therefore, the wants of the people to render necessary the production of these beautifully-finished cabinet articles we are expected, in the interests of a handful of cabinet-makers, to lay out just one-half as much more than we are now paying for them. And this is the way in , which the people arc to become rich and the country prosperous ! “ Young Spiers ” calculates that given the full play of his darling scheme of protection, not only would a new era in the prospects of the Colony commence, hut the population would rapidly incr. ase. I confess I do not see by what process this “consummation so devoutly to be wished” is to be effected; and certainly “ Young l Spiers” furnishes no evidence in support of . the proposition. If we accept as a premise that a population of 50,000 is to be mulct in LOO,OOO annually, then a logical sequence would be to augment the amount annually extorted from the people in the exact ratio of its increase in number. This, at least, occurs to me as being a logical deduction. I can admire the beautiful picture of future happiness and prosperity’ of the Colouy which “Young Spiers” has depicted in his letter ; but I cannot go the length of agreeing that the conditions he would impose are at all likely to realise the “blissful future ” he predicts. We must not begin by beggaring people in order to their future enrichment ; nor can we justify an annual drain upon their resources in order to bring about a problematical ultimate benefit. The legitimate way to create an increase of capital in the Colony is to enable consumers to buy cheaply and accumulate their savings, and the money thus saved may he and will be laid out productively. To insist upon their buying dearly is to prevent the accumulation of savings and the consequent judicious productive investmeut These considerations will, I fear, if properly weighed, be fond to throw a shadow over the bright but fanciful picture which “ Young Spiers ” has drawn of the future. ' We must not restrain the free importation of manufactured goods by which a class is benolitted at the expense of the masses; and nothing will test the capability of our manulecturers or promote more effectually the future well-being of that very class which imagines itself most aggrieved, than will free and unrestrained competition in trade. J. Stuart Mill says: “One of their (the Socialists’) greatest errors, as I conceive, is to charge upon competition all the economical evils which at present exist. They forget that wherever competition is - not, monopoly is ; and that monopoly in all its forms is the taxation of the industrious for the support of indolence, if not of plunder.” Again, “I consider every restriction of it is an evil, ami every extension of it, even if for the time injuriously affecting some class of laborers, is always an ultimate good.” And again, “ It has been often shown that the importation of foreign commodities in the common course of traffic never takes place except when it is, economically speaking, a national good, by causing the same amount of commodities to be obtained at a smaller cost of labor and capital to the old country. To prohibit therefore this importation, or impose duties -which prevent it, is to render the labor and capital of the country leas efficient in production than they would otherwise be ; and compel a waste of the difference between the labor and capital necessary for the homo production of the commodity and that which is required for producing the things -with which it can be purchased from abroad. Tbc amount of the national loss thus occasioned is measured by the excess of the price at which the commodity is produced over that at which it could be imported. . . All is sheer loss to the country as well as to the consumer.” It will be probably replied that whilst these principles apply to England or to Europe they are inapplicable to the condition of the Colony. Tins, however, is no sufficient reply. What is found advantageous there wilfbe alike advantageous here. The large number of hands available for any and every manufacturing purpose in Europe would appear to feel more severely the influx of manufactured goods, which paralyse their industry, than would the Colonial artiua , with whom competition —hard as it is—is not unbearable, and to whom so many opportunities are contantly cropping up for the exercise of bis hands. L repeat that the principles of free trade are universal and unassailable ; and all the eloquence of all the cabinetmakers will not satisfy the people that it is to their interest to pay a pound f vs an article that may ho and is procurable at half that amount. I am, &c., Bauj l , Dunedin, Nov. 25.