The Evening Star TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26 1875

Evening Star, Issue 3953, 26 October 1875, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26 1875

For some three months past Victoria has been engaged in a political struggle arising out of one of the errors of the past. The protectionist bubble has burst. Its reign has been short; much shorter than could have been anticipated from the almost general acquiescence with which it was adopted. Not even the clearest thinker would have ventured to predict that the evils of isolation would have been felt to be intolerable in so short a period of time, nor do we think that conviction of the error of restricting trade by fiscal regulations has become so general as to render a free trade policy acceptable to the majority. Very probably the failing revenue, the natural result of the protectionist policy, and the necessity for resorting to direct taxation to sustain the country’s credit, have had much greater effect in inducing the present crisis than any well-founded conviction of the advantages to be derived from a change of system. Nothing can bo plainer than that if protection produces the proposed end, revenue raised by duties on imports must cease • for the expressed object of a protective policy is to produce every article of consumption in the country, and thus to exclude the importation of goods, the customs duties on which constitute the revenue. The idea of a protective duty also implies restricting trade in certain classes of goods to the supply required by the people of the country only, because as a high duty is necessary to exclude the products of other countries and to enable producers to work to a profit, it is plain that the heavy cost of the homo manufacture as compared with that of other countries eftectually prevents competition in the world’s market. It follows, therefore, that nobody derives benefit from a trade that has to be supported at so heavy a cost, excepting the capitalists, who under protection of an unwise law have been induced to embark in undertakings not suited to the circumstances of the country. All this was ioreseen and pointed out bv the few in Victoria who understood the subject before a monopolist policy was adopted; but they were not listened to. Mr Berry and his theories were accepted by the majority of the population, and, with a degree of weakness that is both inexplicable and unpardonable, the leading Colonists of the day yielded to the pressure. It is hai’d to believe that men like the late Mr Haines, Mr Mjchie, and others of that class were not sincere I ia their conversion \ yet it is equally

difficult to understand the mental process by which persons of education and trained reasoning powers allow themselves to be led into error. Perhaps as an excuse wo may refer to a flimsy and ill-founded theory that was speciously put forward and found advocates in Victoria and New Zealand. Causes which are very easily explained led to commercial depression a few years back. As a matter of course there must be a reason for every series of events. As there is only one true one, a million false ones may be suggested ; and if each is specious, it will have its disciples. To discover truth and to verify it is a work that few are equal to : the generality of men are quite satisfied to accept something that may be true. In this spirit some genius suggested that while free trade might be a very good thing Great Britain, it was very bad policy for Victoria or New Zealand. If the works of Adam Smith or John Stuart Mill w’ere referred to, as proving incontestably the necessity for free and unrestricted exchange in order to bring wealth to a country and insure employment at remunerative wages for its population, a single hypothetical passage in Mill’s work was adduced in proof of the assumed position and in disproof of all the rest of his argument. The fallacy prevailed, protection has been tried, and, as an experiment, has failed. Victoria’s trade has been crippled by it, the high wages which the working class imagined would result have not been obtained; but, on the contrary wages have gradually fallen, the revenue has not met the expenditure, and the clearest-headed statesmen in the country have arrived at the conviction that the system must be changed if the country is to prosper. Mr Berry has had a short-lived tenure of office, but has failed to secure the support of a majority of the Legislative Assembly ; yet the numbers on each side are so nearly equal that any Ministry that may be formed will hold office on a very insecure tenure. Supposing all the arrangements that ignorant statesmanship has made were reversed tomorrow, the practical evils of its origin are present, while the benefits to be derived from a changed system are in the future only : they are matters of faith, not of sight. For some years, in all probability, parties will be nearly equally balanced, and sound legislation difficult. The admirable educational arrangements of the country will aid in the dissemination of sound principles in the generation now growing up, and they will not be so easily gulled as their fathers have been. In the meantime there will be more or less of uncertainty in Victorian politics that will prove perplexing to its legislators and a drawback to its industrial, progress.