NATIVE INDUSTRY.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 814, 18 August 1870, Page 4

NATIVE INDUSTRY.

[ftQiQ. tliy Tlja-.u.es 4-dverti3fir.| " $> any department of native industry requires to be protected, one department has as much claim as another, so that we ought to have this good £bin<* all round. Some time ago it sras proposed by some people in Auckland in Auckland that the manufactures should be protected, and that a prohibitory duty should be imposed on all goods which could come into competition with articles which were or Which could be manufactured hero. We cannot tell what these gentlemen think of Mr Voxel's budget, but it surns the tables upon them with a vengeance —instead of protecting them, £t taxes them to protect others. However, let them be comforted. Before wa conclude we shall make a proposition which, if carried into effect, would protect the manufacturers and protect the agriculturists, and indeed everybody. In old times, in England, honest attempts were made to protect (everybody, and although they had not the 'breadth and grasp of our plan, they were much more honest and impartial than Mr Yogel's. As an illustration, we m-y say that acts were passed for the encouragement of particular kinds of native manufactured buttons, and it was penal to have any button except this on your coat. This was honest, conscientious legislation, though some people might think it rather trilling. We do not propose to come down to anything so small as buttons. But we would venture timidly to put in a word for protection to ourseives. Why should we have the Post office offering every facility for newspapers and books being brought here, which are greedily read, to the (discouragement of native talent and industry as embodied in ourselves. Think of the poetry that might be; produced if Tennyson were not brought out at such a cheap rate. True, it might, like our colonial ham, be inferior to the English article, but that only shows that it wants protection the more, and he who would not, for the sake of native talent, read volumes of bad poetry, and scorn the article attempted to'be forced upon us by tyrannical England, is no true patriot. JLtit us therefore put a prohibitory duty on all imported books and news-

papers. But why should we protect agriculture or manufactures, or anything else, our tariff, and giving rise to immense expense in the collection, when by going a step deeper, we can protect the whole at onpe? Here k the plan, and if Mr Vogel does not see that it is the logical carrying out pf his principles, it must be because he will not*see: Prvtect labor by putting a tax upon immigrants. Why should any article, of which labor always forms a chief part, be protected, while labor itself is not protected ? If Protection is good for anything to the working man, this is the way to get it, for it must be remembered that lie has nothing but his labor to sell. But not only is the laborer not pro tected in that article which alone lie has to sell, but he is taxed to import that very article. Why should bread be made artificially dear, in order thatj labor should be made artificially cheap? For the Canterbury farmer not only! wants a higher price for his produce, but is to get a supply of cheap labor imported at the expense of the community. To accomodate him further, these are to he employed on Government works at baud when he does not want them. It is curious, when so much is to |)e spent in importing cheap labor, that the laborers already in the country should be so frequently made little of. In the number of "Hansard ,: received yesterday, we have a discussion on the Gold Duty Bill, during which Mr Collins said : In the first place, he could pot think it right to take the taxation off one class of community to the detriment of the other classes, lie did not Bee why the diggers, who brought no capital into the country, and whom lie believed were the wealthiest of the laboring classes, should be especially i'avored, and thought that if the country Were in a'position to do without £IOO,OOO per annum such sum should be taken off the general taxation of the country. Now, we believe that goid miners have brought more money into New Zealand than any body of men who have come into it j they have enriched the country more than any other class; fiud we are quite sure that they have jjtought more wealth into the country \h%u will be brought by those who

come out under the Government importation scheme, Mr Collins sees great beauty in the export tax on gold ; we wonder what he would say to an export duty upon the wool he raises at Collingwood.