FIRST SYMPTOMS OF PROTECTION.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1816, 16 December 1879, Page 3

FIRST SYMPTOMS OF PROTECTION.

On a recent incident in Wellington the "Australasian" writes:—To a community which has passed through it all, and had to bear the inevitable consequences, there iB something pathetic in observing the repetitions for the thousandth time of the fallacies and falsehoods under the guise of which protection gets its first footing in a country. The other day the Chamber of Commerce, Wellington, recived a deputation from a protective body, calling itself by the irodest name of the Local Industries' Association, by which the arguments which began to find currency in Viotoria nearly twenty years ago, were brought forward with a dewy freshness upon them as braid new discoveries. Thus, the deputationists declared " they did not wish for tho imposition of duties such as existed in the United States and Melbourne; they only desired such duties as would enable them to foster local industries." By encouraging manufactures the speaker declared "they would be able to sustain a larger population, and consequently there would be an increased consumption of everything." They did not wish to raise the price of goods, as they would be able to manufacture them just bb cheap as they could be imported. They only wished to '_' get tho public into the habit of using colonial made goods." And they only wanted the duties till " industries were established and became prosperous." These are the first stages of the protectionist movement. We can tell from our own experience what are the results after twelve or fourteen years of its operation. The temporary duties are not only permanent, they are increased, and as trade and industry become more and more depressed the clamour of the manufacturers is for more and more protection. So far from removing them as industries become established, the demand is ever for their increase. So far from the population growing and an " increased consumption" being developed, our population only increases at half the rate of the free trade colonies on either side of us, and our consumption, as measured by our trade, shows a rapid decline, and at the end of the time our farming class are beginning to ask themselves the question raised by one of the members of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce, " what compensation the farmers would get for the heavy duties they would have to pay upon everything they consumed, if the changes proposed were made in the tariff."