CANTERBURY AND FREE TRADE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 804, 14 July 1870, Page 3

CANTERBURY AND FREE TRADE.

[New Zealand Herald, July 2."] The Canterbury people are very anxious to have a protective duty placed on grain and flour imported into this Colony. As we stated the other day, this simply means the infliction of extra taxation on those provinces which have to import breadstuff*, from which Canterbury, for instance, will be exempt. With a seriousness waich is quite amusing, the Canterbury Tira.-s shows the amount paid as duty on grain imported from that province into Victoria, which charges a duty of 6d per cwt. It intimates that the Canterbury farmers have enriched the Victorian Government duriog the year to the extent of £I,BOO, through the import duty. And it strongly complains of this, and says:—"Are our Canterbury farmers so prosperous as to be able to afford this tax upon their incomes ? Charity is a virtue that cannot be too highly commmended, but it should be?in at home. Free trade is a glorious idea, and safe in practice when you get as much as you give, but when the giving is all on one side and t e getting on the other, the more you look at it the less you like it." This is exactly what we have got to say. Are our people, we may ask, so prosperous that they are aoie to pay a bread-tax to increase the general revenue of the Colony, while Canterbury will not pay it, but will benefit by it ? As the giving will all be on our side and the getting on the other, the more we look at it the less we like it. We accord our best thanks to our Canterbury contemporary tor so effectually and so eiearly stating our case. We will not weaken the effect of our contemporary's argument by dwelling at length upon it. [ We may add that our Canterbury contemporary proceeds on the baseless assumption that the New Zealand farmer pays the Victorian duty. The tact is, the producer is totally unaffected, while the £I,BOO in question is but a traction of the bread-tax wrung from the Victorian consumer.—iliu. fl.JtU'.]