The Chronicle LEVIN. Tuesday, may 2, 1916. PROTECTION, FREETRADE, AND SUGAR TRUSTS.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 2 May 1916, Page 2

The Chronicle LEVIN. Tuesday, may 2, 1916. PROTECTION, FREETRADE, AND SUGAR TRUSTS.

Protection of local industries is neoessaiy in young countries, whatever the ease may be in old and Well-developed places such as the United Kingdom. Tiier." exists but small prospeote af BUOCCS6 for any new industry in a new laud such as ours when it has to compete on even -terms -with the output of well established factories in other countries uiat have their chief markets in their midst, and which use ; he newer countries as "dumping-grounds" , f ( >r surplus goods, which frequently are sold at less than the actual ooet of their manufacture. But while Protection, to our mind, is an excellent policy for New Zealand and Aus- . trnlia, we recogniße clearly that in our islands it is bringing in its train one ,of its seemingly inevitable evils: we speak of the tendency amongst all protected proprietaries to exact undue profits from the consumers. Such tendencies as these have been manifest in the United States of America | for the last three decades; they were manifest in Great Britain for many years previous to the adoption of a ■ Freetrade policy; manifest to so great an extent that the lapse of over half- ] a-century has not sufficed to change I radically thnt policy in the Mother | Land, thought the exigencies of finance | have led io certain modifications diurj ing the last five years. Under Protection. unfortunately, the public <id- | ministrators arc charged with a grave duty that is too often neglected: the duty of safeguarding the public's true ; interests against the rapaoiousness of j companies and syndicates that outgrow their proper functions in the scheme of social economy. The power to safeguard the people's interests in. this way always abidies with a strong Administration: but no legislative ' proviso can bestow it; no pre-eleotion j promise ensure it; if the admiai«I trative heads are political I The policies of Protection and Free , trade (in relative value) are in ratio ! to the manner in which they are controlled ; Protection run wot is worse j than absolute Freetrade, but reasoni able Protection is of benefit to :n- ---! dnstrial progress. It was due to the business iniquities that Great Britain endured in the first half of the Nineteenth Century that the policy of Freetrade obtained so enduring and so

comprehensive a tenure. The <Moe ms well-put by the great Sir Rob»rt Peel when in 1846 he retired from his high office. He eaid:— "I shall leave a name execrated by "every monopolist, who, from jess "honorable motives, clamors for Pra"tection because it conduces to his "own individual benefit; but it may "be that I shall leave a name oomo"times remembered with expressions "of goodwill in the abodes of those "whoee lot it is to labor, and to earn "then- daily bread; with the sweat "of their brow, when they shall re"cruit their exhausted strength with "abundant oud untaxed food, the "sweeter because it is no longer "leavened with sense of injustice." The moral of the excerpt is for those who apply it properly. To our mind, the latest actions of Australasia's great Sugar Trust are apropos "When in New Zealand we see the doople .unable to buy more than eight pounds' weight of sugar at one time (simply because an agreement made with the Government of New Zealand, by the Trust, not to charge more than a certain price for sugar until Juno next, expires in a few weeks time) tho thought will not down that this incubus on fair dealing should bo removed from its present position. The New Zealand Government should insist upon the spirit of tho agreement being observed ; Jlot placidly ecI copt the unreal observance.