The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2663, 30 August 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 30, 1871.

We confess ourselves so far unacquainted with the geography of Canterbury as not to know where Prebbleton is—that important place at which a public meeting appears to have been held, to instruct Parliament to impose a duty on grain. It sounds very like Peddlington, and its people must have imbibed the wisdom of Gotham to propose a duty on grain, because Victoria has been foolish enough to submit to it. Prebbleton must be a town of farmers who aim at being clodocrats. They seem to have farming instincts, and ideas. Just as the farmers of England reasoned about duties on corn, do the people of Prebbleton. They see the Governments of other countries bent on i-aising the price of the people S bread : they see the folly of it on their part, feel the evil of being shut out from supplying their markets, and then ask that, precisely what they condemn in another country’s legislature, shall be done here. Unfortunately men who reason in such a crooked way live outside of Prebbleton as well as in it, otherwise it might be wise to build a wall round the place, as they used to do in plague stricken villages in England, lest the disease should spread. One might then feed them for a year on corn-taxed bread, while those outside enjoyed the privilege of a free trade loaf, and we are inclined to think, at the end of it, from the contrast between the condition of their pockets with those outside and the difference of comforts obtainable, their monomania for protection would be cured. We judge that these people of Prebbleton must be formers, because nobody else is interested in the imposition of a duty on corn. They perhaps feel aggrieved, because they have goods to sell for which they imagine they have lost a market. They need not be afraid. If the. Victorian’s want corn, they must have it, and they will not buy a bushel less nor pay a less price because their government has been foolish enough to impose a tax that must be paid by its own people. And if the Victorians do not need corn, they will not buy it for consumption although all the barns in Prebbleton were teeming with it. We are well aware it is no use arguing with Prebbletonians, wherever they may be found; and there are many wandering up and down the country, in Parliament and out of it. What we want people not affected with the disease to do is, to keep them at a distance, lest they, too, should be afflicted with this political leprosy. If Victoria lays a duty on corn, the people of Victoria must pay it; and not only the duty on the corn imported, but the extra price to which the duty has raised corn, upon all that is not imported. Let us consider how this must work. In order to make it plain, we must suppose a very probable case. The population of Victoria is about 750,000, and it is estimated to give them bread, 750,000 quarters of wheat, or 0,000,000 bushels annually are required. We must suppose it necessary to import a quantity, no matter whether small or large, to give this supply. Let us therefore assume it is one twelfth, or 500,000 bushels. The I’eraaining 5,500,000, as a matter of course, is supposed to be raised by formers in the country. If the duty were one shilling per bushel the government would receive as revenue L' 25,000, but that duty would raise the price on the whole more than a shilling a bushel, so that the people who eat bread, would have to pay L 300,000 more for it than if it were free from duty—a pretty heavy additional taxation ! Out of this, L 275,000 would go out of the pockets of working men, tradesmen, merchants, and others, into the pockets of a few formers. But this would not be all. If bread rose in price, substitutes for bread would rise too ; and as men cannot, in Coeden’s homely words, “ put their money on their backs, and into their bellies too,” in proportion to the cost of living, they would have less money to spend in other ways. High price .of food, therefore, means fewer clothes, less furniture, shoes down at the heels and out at the toes, threadbare clothes, short petticoats and darned stockings for the children ; less work, lower wages. But supposing the Prebbletonians to feel at all interested in Victorian’s folly, it must be because they are shut out from Victoria’s market. This implies that they hold a quantity of wheat or grain in excess of what is needed in New Zealand. What possible effect can a duty on corn have upon our prices here, if that be the ease l If we have more corn here than we can use, we do not want Victorian produce. It will never raise nor reduce the price in our market. We have seen, in the way of trade, one man trying to sell goods to another, and pushing very hard, but not succeeding: and more than once have we heard the seller

say, “ Very well, as you will not take “ them I shall raise the price.” At which the other very quietly laughed and replied, “I wish you would.” Now this is the threat of the Prebbletonians: “ Victoria won’t take the “ corn; let us raise the price.” Very lame threat ! very impotent, either for good or evil, good Prebbletonians ! but pray do tell your fellow-colonists why you should condemn Victoria for laying on a monopoly duty, and then ask your Government to commit a like folly 1