THE PROTECTION CRY.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 2, Issue 59, 17 February 1868, Page 45

THE PROTECTION CRY.

/ [communicated.] Fancying that all controversial questions concerning the utility of Protection ( so-called) to the industrial interests of , particular classes in a free! community had been for ever set at

rest by the results of exhaustive dis: cussion and legislation, I have been * syuiewhat startled by an attempt to interest the people of New Zealand in any agitation of the matter. When, some years ago, those of the inhabitants of Great Britain who were immediately concerned in the amount* realised from the cultivation of the land, objected to the relinquishment of an existing tax on the importation of corn, and the.permission of a free importation of cattle, that class, including the farmers and all who derived their income from agriculture, were themselves suffering under a most heavy taxation for national purposes. The barley grown by them had, as malt, a heavy tax imposed on it. The horses used by them for ploughing the land on which to raise it were taxed ; those used in draught and the cart used by the farmer and his family—as well as the men employed to clean the horse and cart—-were also heavily taxed.. The bops, his beer, the dog to keep his docks, and many other things, paid heavily to the exchequer. All , these, however, with the exception of the malt tax—nearly £7,000,000 a year—have been repealed, and the whole of the Protective taxes*swept away and annihilated, —the result being that immense quantities of 90m, and numbers of animals, are imported for food into England' every year duty free. How has this radical change affected the position, of the farmer, &c? ? The reply is—he cultivates his land better, lives more expensively, and pays higher rents. The laborers have more and better employment, receive higher wages, aud live in more comfortable homes; —all which the writer well knows from experience, for he has been a staunch Protectionist, and has fought faithfully and energetically on that side of the question, having aided in the getting up at various times of ' at least a hundred petitions to the Imperial Parliament in its favor. But what, I ask, have we in New Zealand to protect, by exceptional taxation? The editor of the Hawke’s Bay Herald, in a leading article on the Bth Feb.’ nays:—“The resources of the runholder of the present day becoming day by day diminished, we suggested protection as one means of ameliorating his condition, inasmuch as it would give him, for the time at least, the command of contiguous markets.” Here, surely, wrapped up in mysterious form, but inscrutable to me, must be argument or wisdom overpowering. What competition is this Protection to rid the runholder of? Sheep and cattle, the great objects of his industry, never come here to compete with him; and I am too obtuse of intellect to understand how a greater supply and consequent reduction in the price of sugar, tea, clothes, and other necessaries, to feed and clothe his shepherds and stockmen, could possibly increase his difficulties. It is too*bad thus to attempt to mislead by the advocacy of measures which tend to the absolute contrary of the object deairecL I will endeavour to show how this Prdtection theory ' would succeed if tried’ in New Zealand. We want both labor and capital so as to be able to turn our present practically unlimited extent of soil to account. Well, it is said we want a higher price for the produce; therefore let us impose such a tax as shall keep away, that which, from some undefined cause, we now import. Suppose this tax applied, and that it raise the price of all the wheat grown and consumed in the Colony by two shillings a bushel, the profit goes into: the pockets of the wheat growers, but it is all paid by the wheat consumers, and the Colony is not one shilling the richer, nor is there one pennyworth more of labor to be performed. At the best, and supposing there to be no waste, the majority of the community,, comprising laborers, tradesmen, &c., %>uld only have been making, a subscription for the, farmers; But this is; not one-half of the evil of it, having ;:,Uq^ly'|e^>Y^ous..4aiue^ : '.bC' the community, laborei s,. tradesmen, -&c., for thevbenefit'of another class; . each derhandjthat a tax be imposedjjbh other classes- for Ms- protection, the

matter fair; and each would have it, too, until all classes would be protected, and all suffering this multiplied taxation. The loss incurred from expenses, increased cost of living, and in other ways by this uncalled-for and mischievous protection would be great, and, moreover, it would create aud disseminate a spirit of dissatisfaction and contention’throughout the Colony, which-would not unlikely, under , present circumstances, end in its permanent ruin.

It is dangerous for children to play with edged tools and poisons; but more dangerous for us, who call ourselves men, to urge our population, who have generally had.no opportunities for the study of such questions, to bring into action principles of difficulty and danger, which certainly, require the exercise of the most sound discretion and wisdom in their execution, even when they are likely to be of advantage ; but as regards this Protection, all political economists agree that it is, both in theory and practice, injurious to the prosperity of a free country.

There are other evils besides those pointed out above attendant upon Protection, such as its diversion of capital into unprofitable lines- of employment, but Tor the consideration of which you will not probably have space to spare on this occasion.