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Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 13, 19 July 1892, Page 2

Certainly our Liberal Government is "going in" for Protection with a vengeance. An export duty has been placed on oysters because that succulent bivalve is a luxury only indulged in by the well-to-do and the wicked in the sister colonies. This is another blow at the Conservatives. Our esteemed contemporary the Wellington Press calls it the " thin end of the wedge" and hints that the Government will probably drive the wedge home by imposing an export duty on meat, wheat, and wool. " New Zealand for the New Zealanders" is the cry. New Zealand can afford to play a lone hand. She does not want money from outside the colony, and she needs no foreign markets. She is too independent to depend on foreign aid of any kind. " Servile dependence" on outsiders she abhors. She would be better off, indeed— according to the BallanceSeddon theory — if she were absolutely shut in from communication with the outer world." Certainly a Government that is mean enough to put a duty on oysters will have little scruple in putting an export duty on wool, if it were only to " wipe out" those " social pests," the sheep fanners.