DUTIES ON NECESSARIES.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 78, 28 September 1895, Page 2

DUTIES ON NECESSARIES.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAR. Sir, — The way in which politicians in this country have dealt with the above question would be a disgrace to legislation in any British dependency, and so-called Liberalism that has had a hand in it is hypocrisy and a farce, and this applies more especially to our trade with England. The imposition of duties on articles that the artisan and the poor of London, and other large cities of England, are engaged in manufacturing, by a country that still remains to a great extent in a wilderness condition, is ex. tremelygridiculous when it is considered that England receives whole carcases of sheep, wool, beef, etc., into her market from this colony d»ty free that otherwise Ave could not get rid of. Beneficial industry will come naturally as population becomes dense in towns, but the above miserable scheme is only calculated to increase the number of poor in England and create pauperism in this country, The plea of encouraging local industry in this case is a delusion and a snare. In the last days of the Atkinson Administration this country had recovered from the financial crisis brought on by the Native difficulty, the blundering of the Grey Government, and the extravagance of the Vogel-Stout rule, and when the revenue was at last sufficient to make both ends meet with a moderate surplus, labor was to some extent leaving this country owing to the falling off of public works, but capital bad not received a scare. There was tben a good opportunity for further retrenchment and reduction of taxation all round, including necessaries. When the present Government assumed power, members of the Opposition, I remember, proposed the latter reductiou, which proposal aroused the jealousy of the Liberal Ministers, as they would sooner have made it a measure of their own, if it were not that they had deluded the workingman, and others, by their scheme of Protection, and to do so had alluded to the prosperity of the United States under Protection, at the time that Democracy, or the working men in America, were getting their eyes opened to the evil of it. This question alone, which so seriously affected the interests of working men, showed plainly that the Labor members pledged to support a Government through thick and thin, upholding this so-called policy, were not fit to retain their seats. But there were two other reasons why the Government wished to retain these duties. Tbe first -was to increase their own salaries and retain them, and the other was borrowing by a professed non-borrowing Government, partly with the object of attracting labor and spreading their popularity in the other colonies, driving away capital at the same time from their uncertain proposed laws relating to land tenure, and Government competition with private enterprise. Tbe State attempted high duty on flannelettes, and other necessary articles, is only in keeping with the preceding policy of the Government. Although so-called Protection and the term Liberal are opposed to each other, . yet there are a number of rabid Protectionis among our rulers, and if they cannot increase the dnties, they have only to get this over-taxed country into the meshes of another big loan, and to employ another tariff commission to jaunt about and throw public money into the sea, and then make it appear a necessity to increase the duties upon necessaries. I am, etc., A Colonist. Feilding, September 23rd, 1895.