Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1871.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 18, Issue 1121, 15 September 1871, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1871.

An anicle on Protection appeared in a late issue of the Wellington Indepen dent, evidently anticipatory of the Financial Statement, and designed to smooth the way for the proposed duties on cereals and flour. It commences by stating the necessity that exists for disputants to well understand the moaning of the terms about which they strive, laying down clear definitions of those terms, lest they be found to be fighting about words rather than things. Tt then proceeds to instance " Protection" as a case in point, tells us what the word really means, and says that it is the duty of every Government to afford it to its subjects —their persons, properties, and industries. With regard to duties on importations, it tells us that the Americans have ceased to call them " protective," and have substituted the term "•defensive/' as better expressing their supposed quality; and ends by showing that the free trade in raw materials adopted by Great Britain is a true policy of protection for its industries. Of course the usual fallacy of the ad vocates of a restrictive policy is assumed throughout—that circumstances alter cases so much that what is best for an old-eslabjished country like Great Britain may not be best for a young country like New Zealand. With all deference to our contemporary, we would submit that the dispute between the free traders and their opponents is not one regarding words but things. No free trader will deny the duty of a State to protect its subjects, or be unwilling to admit that the term " Protection/' as applied to duties on imports, is a gross nuVnomer. The term, however, is not one adopted by free trade advocates, but by their oppol nents, the supporters of restrictive duties. Jt is used, howevei, for the eonvel nience of debate, both parties understanding well enough what is intended. The actual point in dispute is whether those duties are protective or not, their advocates maintaining chat they are so, a proposition which the free trader denies, affirming with much reason that they injure those industries they are supposed to protect, even at times lo the extent of their destruction, America has already found this to be the case with regard to man}' branches of industry, and is rapidly coming to the conclusion that the new term " defensive" is about as great a misnomer as the old one which it has (according to the Independent) discarded, viz., "protective." But with regard to the differing circumstances of young and old communities, we submit that the experience of the latter should be taken advantage of by the former, so as to avoid the evil consequences of the errors into which they have fallen, and from which they have escaped. No greater fallacy can exist than to argue that the young community should follow in all the steps of the old one, as this would imply that no mistakes had ever been made. The elasticity of England's resources enabled her ultimately to succeed jn spite pf restrictive tariffs — quite possibly that of New Zealand might do so too, but England has discovered her error and adopted the contrary course. New Zealand can adopt

the latter without the former, and so escape the penalties attached thereto. It is no good reason for going wrong, that our ancestors have done so before us.