POLITICAL NOTES.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2673, 11 September 1871, Page 3

POLITICAL NOTES.

UN AUTHORISE n EX I’EN D ITU RE. Tbo Wnknlip Mail asks arc the hands of the Ministry to act for the Lost interests of the Colony to be absolutely tied up by an Appropriation Act ? It is all very well to say New Zealand is very moral, and should not transgress. Nevertheless, has she not ? What about that old Auckland party ? What about the Reader-Wood Ministry loans, &c ? However, let us bury the dead. To us, as supporters of the Public Works Progress Ministry—tied by no bonds to it, the supporters of local self-government—the most painful fact is that the money has been obtained by most dubious devices. This is the feature we do not like. Unauthorised expenditure is a dangerous thing to deal with. It may be excused, but nevertheless our sympathies arc not with the Ministry in this instance, so far as circumstances reach us. We regret it the move, because a well-moan-ing, progressive Ministry have done tlunisolves great harm. Tne reins of Government may slip into other hands, but it must not be forgotten that to the Vogcl-Fox administration we owe much, and all are indebted for a new era and a new state of affairs. Tbe thraldom of Native affairs has been cast off. Mr Station! saw this, when he said “ let the wretched past be buried. ” PROTECTION IN GRAIN. The Bruce Standard calls protection “a snare and a delusion,” and quotes a few facts and figures to prove that if “well is let alone,” neither (bo Canterbury nor the Otago fanners will lie long troubled with the competition of other countries or adjoining colonies. The total import of oats to New Zealand in 1860 was 1616 bushels ; while in 1870 it was 9618 bushels—an increase to be attributed mainly to the fact that many farmers had gone in for a change of seed. Is there anything alarming in either of these figures, whose whole value is represented by LISTS. Barley, again, was in 1869 imported to tbe extent of 1600 bushels, and in 1870 to 1058 bushels, at an estimated value of L 772. This surely need not interfere with the growth of barley by our farmers. Wheat imported in 1868 was 188,477 bushels ; in 1869, 189,256 bushels; and in 1870, 80,011 bushels—a decrease of 108.406 bushels, and representing a reduction of value of over 1.34,000. If our farmers would only “possess their souls in patience,” and onr merchants display a little more enterprise and pluck, a few years will witness the entire exclusion of this cereal from among tin; list of imports. As to flour, the returns of 1870 do not show tbc impoits, but wc have reason to believe the decrease is in greater proportion. In 1868 there wore imported nearly 9,000 tons while in 1869 it wag 1 little more than 6,000 tons—thus showing that this item, which we presume to be tbc chief cause of complaint, is getting smaller by degrees, and will ultimately be found wanting from the list of imports, in the same way as oatmeal, pearl barley, and other products manufactured from the raw material of farms in tbe homo country have gradually been replaced by those colonially produced. The [impoi ts of malt still continue on a large scale, but will any man dare to assert that it requires protection to enal 1c malt to be produced profitably to an extent to supply the wants not only of this colony, but of Victoria, when we can grow crops of excellent barley so easily, and for which holders cannot obtain a third of the pi ice that malt readily fetches. With these facts and figures before us, IV O can come to no other conclusion than that our Canterbury neighbors have been goaded on to this silly action of seeking protection liy the increase of duties imposed on grain by the Victorian Government. The Assembly has more than enough of work before it without raising the question of Protection v. Free Trade ; but if it is raised, we dp hope there is a majority who behove in the prim ciples of political economy as applic.iblc to New Zealand as vvcll as to all other countries.